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The Land of the White Helmet 



The Land of the White 
Helmet 

Lights and Shadows across Africa 



By 
EDGAR ALLEN FORBES 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1910, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 




AFRICA SHADED ACCORDING TO ITS DEADLINESS 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue 
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 



©ci.a:^;592 






I 



^ 



TO HER 

** O memories that bless and hum 1 ** 



PREFACE 

I have written the thing as I saw it, 
for the God of Things-As-They-Are. 

E. A. R 



CONTENTS 



I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XL 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

--XVI. 

XVIL 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

-^. XX. 

— XXI. 

~ XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

.XXV. 



At the Sign of the Three Balls . 

White Man's Africa — How He Got It 

The New Pharaoh in Egypt . 

France's African Empire . 

The Arab as a Frenchman 

Between the Sahara and the Sea 

In the Surf of the Desert Sea 

The White Helmet in the Sahara 

The Mix-up in Morocco . 

Casablanca and Captain Cobb . 

West Africa's Half- Way House 

The Log of a Deck-Passenger . 

The Negro as a Frenchman . 

A Hundred Years of Sierra Leone 

The United States in Liberia . 

The Truth about Liberia 

Who's What in Liberia ? . 

The Black Man's Last Stand . 

In the West African Bush 

Hobnobbing with African Kings 

Making King Wobeh's Heart Lie Down 291 



The Women of Black Man's Africa 
African Guides I Have Cussed 
Hunting Africans with a Camera 
Perspective and Retrospective 
7 



PAGE 
II 

21 

43 
64 
79 
95 
113 
130 

137 
151 
165 
177 
187 
196 
211 
226 
238 

254 
264 

275 



309 
326 

348 

354 




GROWTH OF BRITISH AFRICA GROWTH OF FRENCH AFRICA 
SINCE i8is SINCE 1880 




AFRICA TWO THOUSAND 
YEARS AGO 



AFRICA THIRTY YEARS AGO 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Crossing Les DUNES DE Sable . 
The White Helmet in the Sahara 
"Great Spaces Washed with Sun" 
A Sahara " Freighter " at Anchor . 
The Oasis City of El Oued, Sahara 
"There Is but One God Who Is God 
The Arab Chieftains of Algeria 
The Land of the Goat's-Hair Tents 
The Women of the Bedaween Tents 
In the Harbour of Sousse, Tunisia . 
The Arab Quarter Beyond the Wall 
Wind- Jammer with Works Like a Bazoo 
La reine des Ouled-Nails . 
A Moor of the Abd-el-Kader Type 
A Reminder of the Spanish Regime 
A Little Magdalen of Morocco 
General d'Amade_, the Fighter of Casablanca 
Taylor, Cross, Cobb, Lewis, at Casablanca 
Catsudas in Our Walburg "Stateroom" 
Hummel and the Dynamite Beneath It 
The Negro as a Frenchman at Rufisque 
Homes of Imported Negroes, Freetown 
A Crew of Kroo Coalers, Sierra Leone 
The United Brethren Home in Freetown 
Officers of the American Navy Ashore 
Eight Sons of One King at Muhlenburg 

9 



Facing Page 

Title 

20 
20 

37 
67 
67 
87 
92 

92 

no 
no 

122 
128 

144 
162 
162 
182 
182 
190 
196 
196 
204 
204 
213 



10 ILLUSTRATIONS 

Pacing Page 

President Barclay, Governor Ponty, Secretary Johnson 226 

Bishop S. D. Ferguson, of Monrovia 234 

Consul-General Braithwaite Wallis 234 

Dr. Ernest Lyon, American Minister to Liberia . . 234 

Monrovia — The Hilltop 240 

Monrovia — The Waterside . 240 

Senator Harmon Entertaining Ship's Officers . . 248 

The Justices of the Supreme Court of Liberia . . . 248 

"Modest and Unobtrusive, Even in Death" . . . 262 

Bishop Scott and His Kroo Preachers .... 262 

Young Matrons of the Liberian Hinterland . . . 274 

The Funeral Feast at Totoquelli 280 

The Royal Family of Waisinga :i 280 

Vai Girls in a Monrovia Street 292 

The King and Queens of Maraquelli 302 

A Kroo "Boy" and His Wife, Monrovia .... 318 

The Pipe in Advance of Civilization 324 

La Rue DES OuleD-Na'jls, Biskra 330 

Bigotee, Abidi, Saadi, and the Raisuli Moor . . . 334 

Developing Films in a Hinterland Creek .... 348 
And in Salt Water on the Walburg . . . .348 

Just to Show that I Was There 354 

Diagrammatic Maps 

(Adapted from various sources) 

Africa Shaded According to Deadliness .... 4 

Growth of British Africa Since 1815 8 

Growth of French Africa Since 1880 8 

Africa Two Thousand Years Ago 8 

Africa Thirty Years Ago 8 

French Schools in Tunisia 94 

SiFRRA Leone After a Century 210 

Liberia's Portable Boundary 237 



AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS 

A FRICA makes strange bed- fellows. I remember 
, /•\ that when I stepped aboard the Solunta (the 
little Italian mail-packet that brought me from 
Naples to Tunis), the outlines of Vesuvius loomed 
dark and sinister in the gloaming. But what I recall 
much more distinctly is that the great Caruso was 
on board, bidding good-bye to the only three beauti- 
ful girls that I saw in Naples. 

The first-cabin list was small, but very select. In 
the first place, there was Caruso. There was al||^an 
interesting Roman — a tall, brown-whiskered gentle- 
man, with massive brow and the grave, thoughtful 
eye of a man who fishes for ideas in deep waters. 
He may be the Professor of Philosophy in the Uni- 
versity of Rome-^or even the head of some octopus- 
tical Spaghetti Trust. With him was his modest, 
sweet-faced wife, and her pride of ownership could 
be seen without binoculars. 

And there was the Man of Mystery, sitting just 
across the table from me. When the waiter who 
thought that he spoke English came along, I made 
merry with him about something in the catalogue of 
Italian food — and kept one eye on the Man of Mvs- 
tery. There was not the faintest gleam of intelli- 

11 



12 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

gence on his face. Then I decided that he must be 
a Frenchman. 

Met him on deck after breakfast. In my choicest 
French, I remarked that it was a fine day. In 
French, that evidently came out of the same Manual 
of Conversation, he answered that there was no 
doubt about it. We lingered in each other's presence 
for a few minutes, like two sail-boats that have run 
together, but neither seemed able to remember what 
came next in the Manual. And then we untangled 
the ropes and drifted apart in silence. One thing I 
was sure of — that he was not a German; but there 
I gave up. 

There were also some other passengers on board, 
but they don't matter. We were not a rollicking 
crowd. There was no disposition to assemble in the 
cabin and play *' Simon says ' Thumbs up'." Caruso 
and his companion paired off by themselves; the 
other Italians paired off by themselves; the Man of 
Mystery paired off by himselves; and I paired off 
by myselves. 

Caruso did not burst forth into song, but he never 
batted an eye-lash when my camera was pointed in his 
direction. For this I forgive him that he w^as too 
lordly to eat at the same table with the rest of us. 

And so the hours slipped by — a night and a day, 
and then some. Long past midnight, when Caruso 
and the Roman and the Man of Mystery and all 
other self-respecting men were in their berths, I 
lingered alone on the front porch of the Sohmto, 



AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS 13 

Swiftly, over an unprotesting sea, sped the little 
packet, its bow pointed straight toward the full moon 
that hung low over the Barbary Coast. Mine was a 
lonely vigil, but he who starts out on the White 
Man's trail over Africa must accustom himself to 
great silences. 

Suddenly, a star that is not in the astronomies 
flashed out of the distant darkness and disappeared. 
It winked again, and then I knew that it was a 
beacon, set up there on a coast that was once the 
lair of the Barbarossas in the fat days when the 
Corsairs haunted the dreams of all who went down 
to the Mediterranean in galleons. 

Presently the beacon was re-enforced by another, 
more distant; then a third made up the crov/d — and 
there, hanging over the African coast as a warning 
to all weak peoples who would mortgage their in- 
dependence to Europe, were the pawnbroker's three 
golden balls! 

* 5{i ^ ^ ' ^ 

Daylight had not yet dawned when we entered 
the nine-mile canal that the French have cut from 
La Goulette to the very gate of Tunis. We glided 
past the ghostly silhouettes of fishing-boats whose 
sleepy crews were just beginning to stir. When the 
light finally came up out of the sea, its shafts struck 
the beautiful minarets and the dazzling white palaces 
ahead. Yonder, on the right, is the cathedral of Saint- 
Louis, springing up from the very soil that buried 
Carthage and all its glory. This scene must have 
lifted the hearts of the old Romans, when they came 



14 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

in their galvanized-iron suits to remove the city of 
Carthage from the map and make of it the most deso- 
late spot on a picturesque coast. 

They say that the view of Tunis from this point is 
not the best. It is good enough. 

The mask is torn from the Man of Mystery! As 
soon as we warped alongside the dock, a bunch of 
hotel-runners swung themselves up without waiting 
for the gang-plank and swarmed over the deck for 
their prey. One of them waylaid the Man of Mys- 
tery, and I strolled shamelessly along, with my ear 
pointed toward the conversation. Was it Italian, or 
French, or German, or what? 

It was what. The first sentence I caught was this, 
from the M. O. M. : 

" I say, do you know anything about the hotels 
here?" 

I fell into the arms of a runner who spoke Manual 
English, and committed myself to his keeping. He 
chartered an Arab brigand to carry my baggage 
through the custom-house; I paid the Arab double- 
price but he yowled for more. The runner, who was 
a man of much discernment, hurled my baggage upon 
a cab and told me to get in. Then the yowling brigand 
threw my small and unholy coins into the cab in 
disdain. The runner clucked to his horses and calmly 
assured me that the brigand would soon be at the 
hotel to recover the coin. 

And it was so. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS 15 

Many names have been given to this vast continent 
— ^the last of the great divisions to have its veil of 
mystery rent asunder. From the early days when a 
Hebrew scribe called w^hat little he knew of it " The 
Land Shadowing with Wings," down to the time 
when Stanley stamped indelibly upon it the name of 
"The Dark Continent/' Africa's aliases were sug- 
gestive of mystery and horror, of fetichism and 
cruelty, of sweat and blood and the shadow of death. 
"The Dark Continent " it will always be, if you con- 
sider the complexion of its people, but the man who 
called it " The Land of Blinding Sunshine " has de- 
scribed it with equal faithfulness. 

And if another chooses to think of it as " The Land 
of the White Helmet," it is not merely because the 
head-dress of pith covered with duck is now the most 
conspicuous feature of the landscape upon whatever 
part of the long coast-line your foot may rest. In 
some other parts of the tropical world, the white 
helmet is worn for comfort; throughout the greater 
part of Africa it is worn to avert sunstroke — and in 
the middle of the day a sun-umbrella is often used as 
an extra precaution. 

Wherever you see it bobbing about in the sunlight, 
the white helmet lifts the heart, for it represents the 
civilization that seems to be so many millions of miles 
away — represents also that which you miss much 
more: good fellowship and good food. To the 
traveller it gladdens the eye like the sudden glimpse 
of a column of smoke cheers one who is lost in the 
woods. And one of the greatest disappointments of 



16 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Africa is that of finding now and then a black face 
beneath a head-covering that represents something 
else. 

By the pattern of the helmet you know in what 
language to address the wearer, for the helmet of 
Liverpool differs from that of Hamburg or of Mar- 
seilles as much as Tommy Atkins differs from the 
round-faced German trooper or the light-hearted 
French zouave. 

The pattern stands also for a distinct type of Euro- 
pean imperialism, for a certain method of colonial 
administration, and often for a sharply-defined atti- 
-tude toward peoples whose flesh is covered with bark 
of a different colour. But when two white helmets 
come together anywhere in Africa, all thought of what 
each stand for is lost in a hearty grip of the fingers 
and a greeting that obliterates all boundaries — 

"For there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor 

birth 
When two strong men stand face to fac^, though they come from 

the ends of the earth." 

No man should write a book about Africa and ex- 
pect Americans to understand it unless he inserts a 
page or two of primary geography. Tht average 
European knows that Sierra Leone is not a suburb 
of Capetown, that Dakar and Nairobi are not con- 
nected by a trolley-line, and that Liberia is not in 
South Africa — but he is a rash man who assumes this 
much knowledge on the part of the average American. 
Again and again, in talking about the West Coast, I 



AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS 17 

have been interrupted with the question : " Did you 
see Mr. Roosevelt?" There seems to be a childish 
ignorance of the small fact that fifty degrees of lati- 
tude lay between me and the Mighty Hunter ! 

And so, without apologies, the Author invites the 
Gentle Reader to slip on his knickerbockers and step 
back into the geography class. 

To begin with, Africa must be considered as some- , 
thing more than a jungle bounded on the north by 
elephants, on the east by lions, on the south by rhinos, 
and on the west by hippopotami. With a stretch of 
6,000 miles from northern to southern headland and 
5,000 miles from east to west, it is a continent so vast 
that in everything except climate its political divisions 
differ from one another as widely as do the states of 
the United States. It contains approximately one- 
fourth of the area of the globe; it is second only to 
Asia in size ; it is about four times as large as Europe 
and about as large as North and South America com- 
bined; four countries the size of the United States 
could be crowded into its outline. 

The eas^st thing to remember about its loc^on is 
that it is just across the Atlantic from the United 
States and South America. A ship sailing due east 
from Richmond, Va., would hit its northern coast-line 
at Tangier; another sailing eastward from Buenos 
Aires would see land first at Capetown. It lies just 
across the Mediterranean from Europe — thirty miles 
distant at Gibraltar and about twelve hundred miles 
at the widest point. From any part of the beach at 



18 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Tangier, the coast of Spain is plainly visible, and 
when the wind is right the sunset gun on the hill of 
Gibraltar can be heard. It is probably true, as the 
geologists assert, that Africa and Europe were once 
united by isthmuses at Gibraltar and at the toe 
of Italy's boot, the Mediterranean being then a 
lake. 

So far as its location is concerned, however, I pre- 
fer to remember that the great continent lies about 
five thousand miles from New York — a fact which 
was often painfully impressed upon me while on the 
West Coast. When a man with the germs of African 
fever in his blood and the home-longing welling up 
in his throat goes down at sunset and sits on the white 
sand beside the thundering surf, he needs no geog- 
raphy to remind him that five thousand miles beyond 
the northwestern skyline lies home. And yet it is 
misleading to say that Africa is so. many miles from 
any given point. The distance must be measured 
along the ocean highways, via Liverpool, or Ham- 
burg, or Marseilles, for the American will have a 
long search before he finds an Africa-bound steamer 
in the harbour of New York. Since miles are hard to 
remember, it is better to note how long it takes to 
get there. 

Morocco, the nearest point, is two weeks from New 
York, and Cairo is about three weeks. Sierra Leone 
and Liberia, on the big bulge of the West Coast, are 
two weeks from Liverpool or Hamburg, and there- 
fore about three weeks from New York. The Ameri- 
can can reach the mouth of the Congo, or Capetown, 



AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS 19 

or Mombasa (the East-Coast port of the big-game 
hunters), in about four weeks. 

But one may often go more easily and more quickly 
from Europe to Africa than from one African colony 
to another. For instance, I once found it necessary 
to send an Associated-Press cablegram from Monrovia 
to New York; the nearest wire was at Sierra Leone, 
only twenty- four hours distant — yet the news was 
ten days old before a steamer for Sierra Leone ap- 
peared in Monrovia harbour. To get from one part 
of the interior to another, especially during the rainy 
season, is a task that may well be left to the imagina- 
tion. 

The map-makers are in the habit of dividing 
Africa politically, colouring each of the thirty or more 
colonies according to the European country whose 
yoke it wears. The result is a crazy-patchwork that 
can be fixed in mind only as the result of a series of 
mental gymnastics. 

For the plain man, it is sufficient to divide Africa 
into four horizontal zones: 

(i) The Barbary Coast, Tripoli, and Egypt — the 
northern part of the continent down to the Sahara — an 
arid, treeless region where the Arab and the Moor have 
roamed for centuries; it is an agricultural and grazing 
country with a climate somewhat like that of California. 

(2) The Sahara Desert — where life is to be found only 
under the palm-trees of its oases, which in many cases 
become the lair of the buccaneers of the Desert. This is 
a land of dazzling sunshine and suffocating heat, but it 
is not unhealthy. 



W THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

(3) Central Africa — stretching from the Desert as far 
as South Africa. This is an area covered with jungle, 
especially on the East Coast, and with the " big bush " 
on the west and in the Congo country. Practically all of 
this region that borders on the coast and that lies along 
the rivers deserves its name — " the white man's grave- 
yard." 

(4) South Africa — which has a climate as tolerable 
as that of the temperate zone, and which is now so thor- 
oughly civilized that it may properly be considered a part 
of Europe. 

Throughout every one of these zones you will find 
the White Helmet — singly or in groups. It is a part 
of the uniform of the commandant; it is made to fit 
into a place in the ecclesiastical regalia of many kinds 
of clergymen; it takes the place of hat and bonnet on 
the head of the missionary lady; it shields the dapper 
merchant along the Mediterranean and the West 
Coast trader whose rough garb is spotted with palm- 
oil. And it covers the dignified head of " The Officer 
Administering the Government " — the field-manager 
of the " Uncle " who sits behind the money-box at 
the Sign of the Three Balls. 




THE WHITE HELMET IX THE SAHARA 




" GREAT SPACES WASHED WITH SUN 



II 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA— HOW 
HE GOT IT 

THE great History of Africa has never been 
written — and never will be — the picturesque 
history that is told only at night, to little 
groups of naked men squat on their heels around 
blazing fires. 

When the gloom of .night drops gently upon an 
African village and shuts it in with a canopy of dark- 
ness through which can be seen nothing but the stars, 
then it is that the silent bush becomes literally alive with 
life and sound. Myriads of crickets and katydids set 
up a din that strikes the ear-drum with a violence 
which no man has yet described ; the winged creatures 
of the night swish though the air like lost souls or 
croak their hoarse notes across infinite spaces; and 
louder than them all comes the love-yowd of a bush-cat 
or the death-cry at the watering-place. It is the feed- 
ing-time for all the creatures in the great zoo — and 
they must feed upon one another. 

And then who knows what uncanny shapes from 
another world are hovering about this curtain of 
blackness? (Are you afraid in the dark? It is a 
survival of the primitive terror that has outlived all 
the philosophies of the centuries — a grim reminder of 

21 



22 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

an ancestry that goes back to a time when all the 
spirits of the night were demons.) 

And so it is that the African must have his fire- 
light and his companionship and his " chop." Then 
his heart grows warm, and his tongue loosens, and 
he tells the wonderful stories of the bush. He can 
never really tell them in any other set of circumstances, 
and the educated African can tell them not at all. 

The modern history of the Dark Continent, from 
the White Man's standpoint, has been written in many 
volumes, many tongues, many graves. The man of 
the bush, who draws no subtle distinction between a 
" boundary commission " and a '' punitive expedition," 
will tell the history in five chapters, with a white man 
as the initial letter of each. 

The first White Man came up out of the sea in a 
too-big canoe that had wings like a sea-gull. He had 
red skin, and much whiskers, and hair that was 
straight and soft like the goat's — and his flesh looked 
good to eat. He came and he went, and the tale of 
the coast men who had the good luck to see him, and 
who carried the news back into the bush, overtaxed 
the belief of a credulous people. But there was the 
proof — the magic piece of glass which you might look 
into and see a black face from nowhere staring back ! 

The second White Man came up the sluggish river, 
or cut his way through the tangled bush, or dragged 
his heavy feet across the blistering sand-dunes of the 
desert. He was " the Breaker of Stones," and he had 
fire-spitting guns that drove invisible spear-heads 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 23 

through every African that tried to shut up his road. 
Like a spectre he came and went — and somewhere 
back in the bush they are telhng the story yet. 

The third White Man was stranger yet, and he was 
not in such haste to pass on. He had loads of fine 
caHco and basketsful of shiny beads, and bottles of 
white water that set the heart on fire. For the 
commonest tusk of ivory, or an ordinary slave boy, 
a native could buy a bottle of the white water or a 
beautiful cloth called " Bandana." But when the 
tusks and the slaves had all been brought in, he also 
went the way to the coast. 

The fourth White Man also brought loads, but no 
white water. In his bundles were cloth and books 
and pots and little bottles filled with the medicine of 
the white Devil-man. He cared not for the tusks of 
ivory; he wished not to trade beads for girls; and he 
spoke soft words to the children. But he liked not 
the burning and the spearing and the much-marrying; 
and he built a king's house for the children and called 
it a School. 

The coast-trail did not swallow up the School-Man. 
His heart sleeps under the baobab, in the bed marked 
off with the white-water bottles that he liked not. 

The last White Man also came up from the great 
water — and to stay. He brought many loads, but 
" dashed " only the chiefs. He also built a king's 
house and on it a stick; and on the end of the stick 
he put a piece of bright cloth, which he called '' Flag." 
And he sent out his fighting men- — with their fire- 
spitting guns — to call all the kings to palaver in the 



M THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

house under the Flag. He spoke in a strong voice 
and said that he was the Government, and the kings 
should hereafter bring all big palavers to the Flag — 
also bring long tusks for the Biggest-of-all Chief down 
in the sea. 

And on and on for hours, the dark story of Africa 
might be told in the simple language of the bush. 

Africa's era of exploration is past ; there is nothing 
left to explore. " The partition of Africa " is over — 
because there is nothing left to divide. And now, 
after the scramble of Europe, what remains to the 
Blacks? The crazy-patchwork map shows that the 
whole of Africa is European except four small coun- 
tries — Morocco, Tripoli, Abyssinia, and Liberia. 

But Morocco is already in the unrelaxing grasp of 
the French. Tripoli is now Turkish, and it seems to 
be generally understood that to-morrow — when the 
Turkish Empire goes to pieces — it will become Italian. 
Abyssinia is a Brown Man's country, and the Euro- 
pean eagles are patiently watching from their lofty 
perch for the hour when they may swoop down upon 
it without raising an outcry. 

The only Black Man's country left in all Africa is 
the American colony of Liberia — and I saw, while I 
was in its capital, the failure of a careful plan to raise 
the British flag over the city that bears the name of 
a President of the United States. 

The story of the White Man in Africa is twenty- 
five centuries long — or longer. It all depends upon 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 25 

your definition of "• white." I have seen hundreds of 
Arabs, for instance — soft-skinned, effeminate town- 
dwellers with sun-umbrellas — who were whiter than 
I ; and more than once I have mistaken brown-skinned 
French zouaves for Arabs. This much is certain: 
a White Man is not merely a man with a white 
skin. 

Another question springs up : Is the African Jew a 
white man? I defy any stranger to distinguish a 
Tunisian Jew except by his head-dress. The Semites 
who overran North Africa thirty centuries ago left 
the ruins of magnificent cities like Carthage and Utica, 
but I prefer to consider the Greeks as the first white 
colonists in Africa. In the wake of the galleys of 
Athens came the legions of Rome. They fitted their 
yoke upon Egypt and broke the sword of Hannibal 
at Tunis; the rest was easy. Tunis and Tripoli be- 
came the Roman colony of ''Africa"; Algeria was 
"Numidia"; and Morocco became " Mauretania." 
From the Red Sea westward to the Atlantic, and from 
the Mediterranean to the Sahara, the legions of the 
Caesars patrolled the hot plains where now you see 
the Chasseurs d'Afrique, the Turkish zouaves, and 
" Tommy Atkins." And here Rome laid deep the 
foundations of a wonderful white civilization — but 
where is it now ? 

Then came the Teutonic Vandals and the Byzantines 
— marching past to take their place in the columns of 
the silent, vanished races. 

Then, like a whirlwind out of the desert, came the 
horde of Moslem conquerors and they swept from 



26 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

African shores all but the crumbled ruins of the White 
Man's civilization. 

For six centuries no one dared the lightning. Then 
came Saint-Louis a-crusading into Africa — ^you may 
see his tomb on the hill of Carthage to-day. His 
epitaph closes the early history of the white man in 
Africa. 

The Mariners of Portugal. The little sailing ves- 
sels of the Portuguese were the scout-boats of the 
modern white invasion that has made the Tragic Con- 
tinent a European plum-patch. Four centuries ago 
they landed fighting men at Ceuta (just across from 
Gibraltar) and took from the Moors a citadel that 
had once been Roman; to-day it is the armed camp of 
the Spanish. In 1446 a Portuguese sea-captain was 
at the mouth of the Senegal; to-day the little French 
city of St. Louis decorates that part of the map and 
a fussy locomotive connects it with Dakar, the capital 
of French West Africa, eighty miles to the southwest 
In 1479 the flag of Portugal was at the Canary 
Islands, westward from Dakar ; to-day the yellow and 
red of Spain flaps from the flagstaff s of Las Palmas, 
and toreadores from Cadiz play tag on Sunday after- 
noons in the Plaza de Toros of Teneriffe. 

By 1482 Portuguese seamen had rounded the big 
bulge of the western shore and anchored in the boom- 
ing surf off the Guinea Coast; to-day you will see 
there only the Elder-Dempster boats from Liverpool, 
the rusty, heavily-laden freighters from Hamburg, 
and an occasional Frenchman steaming to or from 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 27 

Marseilles. Seven years before Columbus made our 
war with Spain possible, his Portuguese rivals were 
filling their water-casks in the Congo River ; but their 
less ambitious descendants left to the Belgians the 
distinction of being accused by Mr. E. D. Morel of 
more '' atrocities " than the Spanish Inquisition knew. 

That was an age of seamanship — in toy sail-boats 
along one of the most dangerous coasts in the world — 
and our school-book friend Vasco de Gama crowned 
it in 1498 by creeping all the way down the West 
Coast, crawling on hands and knees around the Cape 
of Good Hope, and sailing triumphantly northward 
along the eastern shore of Africa. By right of dis- 
covery, therefore, Portugal should to-day be ruler of 
three- fourths of the great continent instead of three 
wretched colonies — but it is lucky for the African that 
the sceptre passed with the opportunity. 

The Portuguese priest of that early time was an 
imperialist as daring as the sailor. Just one year 
before America was located on the map, he began 
saying mass on the Congo — the pioneer white resident 
of modern Africa. Ten years later there were in that 
region enough Catholic blacks to justify the appoint- 
ment of a native bishop. But the dream of the church- 
man faded along with that of the navigator. Al- 
though the colony of Angola (south of the Congo), 
has at Loanda a permanent settlement thirty-three 
years older than Jamestown, the only real progress 
dates from the arrival of the British engineers who 
are laying the Benguella Railroad across the wilder- 
ness to the copper mines southwest of Tanganika. 



28 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

The only other colony remaining to the Portuguese 
along the thousands of miles of western coast dis- 
covered by their mariners is Portuguese Guinea, a 
part of Africa's- bay-window. 

Their best colony is Portuguese East Africa. It 
has more than a thousand miles of seaboard, and also 
extends inland along both banks of the Zambesi. 
There was a trading-station there in 1544; and two 
years before Captain John Smith founded the first 
families of Virginia, there was a Portuguese governor 
at Mozambique. There isn't much more there now. 

The Remnants of Spanish Africa. Four centuries 
and a half ago, when the last Moor had been driven 
from the stronghold of Granada, the Spanish avengers 
followed him across the narrow sea and captured his 
kasbah at Melilla. All that has happened on American 
soil has happened since then — but the 450 years have 
brought little change to the Spanish city that bakes 
in the Moroccan sun. The European imprinted his 
personality upon that region so lightly that when I 
entered the little harbour I saw marines from Spanish 
gunboats landing ammunition for the desperate strug- 
gle that almost swxpt the invaders from the coast last 
year. 

It was by chance that I took passage on a boat that 
touched at Melilla, for nobody except Spanish soldiers 
and convicts goes there intentionally. From the nar- 
row strip of marina to the citadel that tops the pre- 
cipitous headland, it is an armed camp whose streets 
swarm with soldiers in ill-fitting uniforms and officers 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 29 

burdened with gold lace. Every building that rises 
above the commonplace is some sort of a military 
ciiartel; even the Moors in the narrow, crooked streets 
are unpicturesque. Grim retribution has surely 
overtaken the wretched criminals who have been 
transported to this hot and barren spot. Here the 
Spanish are stubbornly playing a losing game, trying 
to hold the narrow strip of coast that is all that re- 
mains of a chain of outposts that once extended from 
Morocco to Tunis. 

As for the outposts of Spain that were located along 
the Algerian and Tunisian seaboard, the French tri- 
colour has been waving over them these many years. 
In the busy port of Oran, for example, they will point 
out to you an ancient gateway bearing the Spanish 
coat-of-arms — just as they will show you the mosque 
that was built with money realized from the sale of 
Europeans in the slave-market. Except for Melilla 
and Ceuta, the language of Don Quixote is about all 
that is left of Spanish occupation in North Africa. 

A heavy downpour of rain — it has more than once 
reversed the tides of empires — proved to be the Span- 
ish deluge. It was at Algiers, in 1541, and the Turk- 
ish buccaneers of the Mediterranean had the fate of 
the Spanish overlords trembling in the balance. The 
heavens opened, the rains descended, and the Spanish 
were routed. Little by little they lost the whole coast 
except the little strip in north Morocco. Up to 1840, 
on the island of Djerba, east of Tunisia, a tower made 
of 18,000 Spanish skulls stood as a Turkish trophy. 

On the west coast, just south of Morocco, is another 



30 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Spanish colony (with a Portuguese name), Rio de 
Ouro. It may be reached once in two months by a 
boat from the Canaries. At Teneriffe I was told that 
there is nothing at Rio de Ouro except a garrison, and 
that the soldiers dare not venture a mile beyond their 
fortifications. The only other Spanish colony on the 
mainland of Africa is an insignificant settlement 
(Corisco Bay) south of the Cameroons. 

The most important Spanish possession is the group 
of Canary Islands, southwest of Morocco. Their 
prosperity is not due to the Spanish, however, but to 
the fact that the two chief cities, Teneriffe and Las 
Palmas, are coaling-stations for the West Coast 
steamers. If the official gentlemen ajt Washington in 
1898 had been more familiar with the geography of 
the Spanish possessions, the American flag might now 
be over this gateway to West Africa ! 

Italy's Backward March. In 1884 the letter-boxes 
in Cairo had Italian labels, but who thinks of Italy 
now in connection with Egypt? Last year in Tunis 
I saw the same phenomenon, but Tunisia is Italian only 
in population. Italy now holds sovereignty in Africa 
over two unimportant colonies — Eritrea, at the 
southern end of the Red Sea, and Italian Somaliland, 
just around the corner. This territory was allotted in 
the blanket-agreement among the European Powers. 

When the French caught the Italians asleep and 
walked away with Tunisia, the international muddle 
was cleared by a promise that Tripoli should become 
Italian whenever the breaking-up of the Turkish 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 31 

Empire should come to pass; at least, this seems to 
be the agreement of Europe. The influence of Italy 
is very strong in Tripoli now, but there is many a slip 
between the macaroni and the lip. The modern 
Romans have small claim to kinship with the ancient 
tribunes and the armoured legions that once ruled 
North Africa. 

The German Invasion. The Englishman ought to 
be a firm believer in Providence; the steady extension 
of his empire in spite of the stupendous blunders of 
his statesmen is surely a mark of Divine favour. The 
Germans were practically forced to enter Africa and 
hoist their flag over a region which they did not covet 
and which Great Britain would very gladly have to-day 
as a part of the Union of South Africa. 

It happened in 1880. Some isolated German mis- 
sionaries in southwest Africa appealed for much- 
needed protection, and Berlin made an Alphonse- 
Gaston bow to London. But Lord Beaconsfield and 
Mr. Gladstone stoutly disclaimed all responsibility 
over the region. Three years later the Kaiser's men 
raised the Red, White, and Black over their first 
colony — German Southwest Africa. Then the British 
gentlemen sitting in Downing Street raised their 
voices in a roar of diplomatic protests — but the Kaiser 
referred them to Lord Beaconsfield's letter-book from 
1880 to 1883, and the incident was closed. 

The same flag went up the following year in the 
Cameroons, east of the British colony of Nigeria. 
This was a very clever piece of work on the part of 



32 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

a nation not famed for quick action. The Germans 
had a vague claim on the region, a claim based upon 
discoveries and '' treaties " with native chiefs — and 
how many African crimes that clause has covered ! 

But the Germans played the game fairly. Official 
notice was sent from Berlin to London that the ex- 
plorer Nachtigal was headed for that part of the 
coast, yet the British consul whom Downing Street 
commissioned to raise the British flag in the Came- 
roons took his own time about it. Herr Nachtigal 
moved swiftly, but he could not make the old 
Cameroons chief hurry. After the treaty had been 
drawn up, the German was made to twirl his thumbs 
for a whole week while the chief waited for the 
British consul to arive. He arrived — a few hours 
after the treaty had been signed! And so the flag 
that flies over the Hoboken docks continues to drip 
on the rain-soaked coast of the Cameroons. 

Another year (1885) saw the Teuton in what is 
now German Southeast Africa, east of Lake Tan- 
ganika. This was another case where the English- 
man has been outwitted. Three German " mechanics " 
unloaded their tool-boxes and were officially snubbed 
by the German consul. The '' mechanics " wandered 
about the country — and before Britain knew what was 
going on they had riveted German sovereignty over a 
region that now precludes the possibility of an un- 
broken line of Union Jacks from Cairo to Capetown. 
And the best international lawyers in Britain could 
find no way to get the rivets out. 

The German claim to the little colony of Togo, on 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 33 

the Guinea Coast, runs back for more than two cen- 
turies — to a time when there were a few isolated 
trading-posts planted there by Hamburg. One 
African colony calls for another; and so in 1885 the 
vision of empire focused on Togo and it became a 
" protectorate." 

All in all, it must be recognized that Germany has 
shown exceptional consideration for the territorial 
rights of others in Africa, including the rights of the 
natives themselves. Sharp practice in diplomacy does 
not count as a crime, for diplomatic ability is shown in 
'' beating the other fellow to it." The German flag is 
over no colony that was taken from a weaker power 
by bullying. 

The Overlordship of the Congo. Question: How 
did it happen that the ruler of a little country like 
Belgium became lord over one of the largest and 
richest regions of all Africa? Answer: Partly as the 
result of his own sagacity, but mainly on account of 
the short-sightedness of others. And it was a British 
subject — Stanley — who made it possible. The suc- 
cession of events was as follows : 

(i) April 9, 1877. Stanley reached the mouth of the Congo 
after his wonderful journey of three years " Through the Dark 
Continent." 

(2) January, 1878. Stanley, arriving in Europe, was met by 
representatives from Leopold. 

(3) November 25, 1878. The Coniite d'Etudes du Haut-Congo 
was formed in Brussels, with Leopold as honorary president and 
a capital of $1,000,000. 

(4) August 14, 1879. Stanley and his staff, acting for this 



34 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

committee, reached the Congo and began to make treaties with 
the native chiefs. 

(5) April 22, 1884. The Congo State was recognized by the 
United States ; on November 8th Germany followed. 

(6) November 15, 1884, to February 26, 1885. The Berlin 
Conference threshed out all conflicting claims and left the 
Congo State independent, with Leopold as its head. 

(7) 1909- The sovereignty of the Congo was transferred 
from Leopold to Belgium. 



In the violent discussions that arose with England, 
France, and Portugal over territorial rights, Germany 
held the balance of power and swung it in favour 
of the Belgians. The Powers whose claims were shut 
out can now see several ways in which the Congo 
might have been swung their way, but Leopold saw 
them years before. Great bodies — such as the British 
Empire — move slowly. 

France's African Empire. In all the market-places 
north of the Sahara you may see squatting Arabs 
whisking away the flies with little fans of woven 
fibre ornamented with needlework. They are shaped 
like a battle-axe, and one of them gave to France the 
nucleus of its African empire. 

It happened in Algiers. Algeria was Turkish then 
and the French consul was pressing upon the Dey a 
claim for damages. They had some words and the 
Dey struck the consul in the face with his little fly- 
whisk. As a direct result, though long delayed. Gen- 
eral Bourmont landed some 30,000- French soldiers 
near Algiers in 1830, and within three weeks the Dey 
was out of a job. 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 35 

Some years of wavering policy followed. The 
French announced, most politely, that they were only 
visiting Algiers; but they are there yet and Algeria 
is a part of France, with Senators and Deputies in 
Paris. It took eighteen years of almost continuous 
fighting to bring this about. Veteran officers who had 
served the great Napoleon directed the campaigns; 
and junior officers who were destined to be com- 
manders in the Crimean and Franco-Prussian wars — 
including young MacMahon (the future Marshal of 
France), whose name I saw hyphenated with Arabic 
on a lonely railroad station — received in Algeria their 
baptism of fire. 

Abd-el-Kader, son of a holy man, was the chief 
factor. This young Arab of twenty-four was a born 
leader of men; he was also a gentleman who had 
travelled as far as Mecca and Bagdad; and in diplo- 
macy he could sit with anybody. You may occasion- 
ally see his type to-day — fair complexion, high fore- 
head, blue eyes with black lashes, oval face fringed 
with a jet-black, scanty beard. 

Abd-el-Kader gave the young French officers all the 
practice they wanted from 1832 to 1841. Then landed 
General Bugeaud, also a leader of men — one of the 
kind that reports to the War Department but doesn't 
care much about receiving instructions. Bugeaud 
knew how to win the hearts of soldiers while working 
them to the limit — and it is no child's play to fight 
under the African sun. He also was a diplomat. He 
sent his adventurous interpreter to Mecca and pro- 
cured a document that tolerated infidel rule over 



36 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Mohammedan subjects; and he engraved upon his 
seal a text from the Koran : " The earth is the Lord's, 
and he gives it in heritage to those whom he has 
chosen." Bugeaud understood this to mean that the 
Lord had given Algeria to the French and ordained 
Bugeaud as his prophet. 

It was a real war, with from 80,000 to 90,000 
French soldiers in the field. Abd-el-Kader was 
steadily out-generaled, but it remained for a young 
prince, the Due d'Aumale, to break the backbone of 
his power by a brilliant dash. It was a repetition of 
what Alexander did to Darius at Issus — and it cost the 
French nine killed and twelve wounded. The prince 
was made a lieutenant-general, Bugeaud became a 
Marshal of France, and Abd-el-Kader became a back- 
number. There have been many fights since, but 
France sits firmly in the high-backed Algerian saddle. 

The Italians thought Tunisia was theirs, and the 
British once had the same impression. But while the 
Sicilians in Tunisia were sharpening their knives over 
the melon, France ran away with it, vine and all. On 
the pretext that the Tunisian Arabs along the Algerian 
frontier — and a wild, rugged land it is — were ravag- 
ing French territory, a French army was unexpectedly 
landed. In one hand the Frenchman held behind his 
back a perfumed treaty, while the other hand held a 
big stick, with its knobbed end conspicuously protrud- 
ing. The Bey made the right guess, and Tunis is a 
'' protectorate " of France. The Bey's sign is still up 
and he comes to the office once a week, but the French 
resident does all the worrying. The Bey's job is the 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 37 

softest in Africa, unless we except the Khedive's, and 
his pay-envelope comes regularly. He submits grace- 
fully, for the papers of North Africa are not filled 
with announcements of '' Bey Wanted." 

French West Africa dates back to the seventeenth 
century, but the Senegal possessions assumed no real 
importance until after Algeria and Tunis came under 
the Tricolour. In 1758, what we know as the French 
and Indian War resulted in the capture of the Senegal 
settlements by the British, but they were afterward 
returned. French explorers, traders, and fighters 
w^ere well on the way to make a real colony when the 
Franco-Prussian War came along and caused the 
Senegal to be forgotten. In 1887 they made a new 
start, with a railroad around the Senegal cataracts; 
an explorer (Captain Binger) gave France claim to 
a vast region along the upper Niger and to its present 
Ivory Coast colony; and in 1893 ^^e obstreperous 
King of Dahomey was subdued. Finally, Timbuctu — 
the geographical centre of the present empire, but then 
a Moslem stronghold — was captured by a French 
lieutenant with nineteen soldiers, twelve of them being 
Negroes. 

The next step was logical. Between the Mediter- 
ranean colonies and the Niger lay some millions of 
tons of red-hot sand, called the Sahara. England 
had no use for it, and therefore told France to take 
it. France took it. 

From one little foothold on the Gaboon River, ac- 
quired by treaty, has come the French Congo. Yet 
the foothold was more than once offered to England in 



38 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

exchange for its tiny colony along the Gambia. Libre- 
ville was founded in 1848, and then for thirty years 
the explorer DeBrazza seems to have been the only 
Frenchman at work. When Leopold started Stanley 
on his trip to acquire titles, DeBrazza cut across from 
the Gaboon and beat him to the upper Congo. He 
hung up so many French flags that the Berlin Con- 
ference had to give France a large slice of the Congo 
basin and promise more if the Congo Free State 
should ever be dissolved. 

Lake Chad became the next objective point. 
Foreau, Lamy, and others reached it from across the 
Desert; Crampel and Gentil worked up from the 
Congo; and the whole of French Africa was thereby 
made into a continuous empire. This was not so 
easy as it sounds. South of Lake Chad, for instance, 
Major Lamy had to hurriedly raise a few hundred 
native troops and throw himself across the path of 
60,000 marauders, led by a former slave of Zubeir 
Pasha, named Rabeh. There was a great fight, and 
the white man won. But when he reached the place 
where Rabeh lay wounded on the field, the Arab made 
a last effort and plunged a knife into Lamy's heart. 
And there, on the Great Divide that rolled back a 
dervish horde, two worthy foemen died together. 

Two isolated colonies round out the sum of French 
possessions in Africa. Madagascar became a perma- 
nent possession in 1895, after more than two centuries 
of strife; and French Somaliland was acquired mainly 
by purchase about the time of the break-up of the 
Egyptian Sudan. 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 39 

Britain's African Empire. The British flag covers 
as much of Africa as the French, and the territory is 
of vastly greater wealth; but it is scattered over both 
sides of the great continent. 

Its four colonies on the West Coast — Gambia, 
Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, and the Nigerias — are 
mainly the heritage of great trading companies and 
have passed through varying changes of fortune. 
Gambia began with '' Good Queen Bess " in 1588, and 
after a century and a half of friction with the French, 
it is a peaceful little garden-patch running up both 
sides of the river. 

Sierra Leone, having the only good harbour on the 
entire West Coast of Africa, was naturally an object 
of British attention in the days when English captains 
commanded slavers instead of chasing them. Great 
Britain obtained Sierra Leone in 1787, and, by way of 
atonement for its share in the sin, turned it over to a 
society of benevolent gentlemen for use as a city of 
refuge for freed slaves. In 1807 it became a crown 
colony and has remained such this hundred years. 

Along the Gold Coast the British trading com- 
panies were administering a crude form of government 
as far back as 1672, but the natives back from the 
coast gave no end of trouble, especially the king of 
Ashanti. In 1821 the Government decided to rule 
it as a crown colony and Sir Charles MacCarthy was 
sent over as governor. The king of Ashanti notified 
the new ruler that the skin of his head would soon 
ornament the royal drum — and it did. The border 
warfare kept on with annoying persistence until 1873, 



40 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

when England sent one of its famous regiments — the 
" Black Watch "—to end it. That was a fight long to 
be remembered. The Highlanders made a forced 
march under fearful conditions and faced at Koomas- 
sie shotguns that were loaded with pieces of broken 
pots and jagged slugs of lead that inflicted terrible 
mutilations. After it was over and Koomassie was in 
ashes, the black prisoners asked permission to place 
their hands over the hearts of the white men to absorb 
some of their courage. In 1895 the same work had to 
be done over again, but since that date there has been 
no king of Ashanti. It is now the hinterland of the 
Gold Coast colony. 

The Nigerias (Northern and Southern) began with 
Lagos, a narrow strip around the coast for the two 
hundred miles that the Niger needs for a delta. It was 
obtained in an honourable way by paying a native 
king $5000 a year for the last twenty-four years of his 
lifetime. After the Germans had thwarted them in 
the Cameroons, the British extended their influence 
up the Niger to meet the French, and eastward as a 
wedge between the Germans and the French at Lake 
Chad. There is no stain on the British name in this 
part of Africa. 

That can scarcely be claimed in South Africa. 
There England began in 1795 by forcibly taking Cape- 
town from the Dutch, because it was needed as a 
victualling station by British ships en route to India. 
In 1806 the whole of Cape Colony was absorbed. The 
rest of the story — Orange Free State, Bechuanaland, 
Natal, Transvaal, Matabeleland, and so on — are merely 



WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 41 

successive chapters of the same kind. Had diamonds 
not been found at Kimberley and gold in the Rand, 
the banner of England would not be waving all the 
way to Victoria Falls and beyond. Perhaps, after all, 
it has been a good thing for Africa; it has certainly 
been a good thing for the British. 

That extension of territory known as Nyasaland 
and British Central Africa is a different story. This 
is the region where Livingstone and other missionary 
explorers and settlers preceded other white men and 
made a pathway for the man with the flag. 

The manner in which England came to be the over- 
lord of Egypt is outlined in the succeeding chapter. 
And when, a quarter of a century later, the British and 
Egyptian troops avenged Gordon, it was a foregone 
conclusion that the Sudan must be British all the way 
to the Nyanzas. The Union Jack and the Egyptian 
flag float side by side over all this region, but even 
the Egyptian does not take this seriously. 

Extending southeast to the coast, with Uganda as 
a hinterland, is British East Africa — nominally a 
" protectorate." (Wherever you meet that word on 
African soil, you may understand that diplomacy has 
been up to some of its sharp tricks, with the gleam of 
steel behind it.) But let us shed no tears over it, for 
the Sultan of Zanzibar and the kings of Uganda were 
not rulers who loved their fellow-men. 

The remaining colony, British Somaliland, is but 
part of the wreckage of the Egyptian Sudan. Its im- 
portance is mainly strategic, but even that is over- 
shadowed by Aden (in Arabia) and the island of 



42 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Perim (in the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb), at the exit 
of the Red Sea. In the consideration of British 
Africa it is important to remember that at the three 
points where Europe and Asia encroach upon the 
Dark Continent — Gibrahar, Suez, and Aden — the 
British flag marks the location of British batteries. 

This, then, is the Africa of our day : a vast tropical 
plantation dominated by two great landholders (Eng- 
land and France), with half a dozen little garden- 
patches held by other European " squatters." The 
old tribal distinctions are rapidly breaking down; the 
tribal dialects are doomed ; the tribal frescoes are van- 
ishing from foreheads and cheeks. The village kings 
have become police magistrates; the paramount chiefs 
are justices-of-the-peace ; and over them all is the 
Supreme Bench, the mailed fist, the iron-shod heel — 
the Man in the White Helmet. 



Ill 

THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 

PROVIDENCE and Imperialism call a few men 
to great tasks. Some — like Gordon at Khartum 
— are caught by a seething tide and swept away 
in the wreckage of their hopes, leaving only the great- 
ness of a memory that never dims. Others — like Cur- 
zon in India — go steadily forward until their way is 
blocked by a wall which they can neither break nor 
climb; the man drops out of sight but the road that he 
has hewn remains. Now and then one has the happi- 
ness to finish his great task and retire with the ap- 
plause of his countrymen ringing in his ears. This 
was the case with Evelyn Baring, the Earl of Cromer, 
the first Pharaoh of the British dynasty, who has 
made more permanent history in Egypt than any man 
since Rameses. 

For more than twenty years. Lord Cromer worked 
at his hard task — and it was his good fortune to be 
allowed to stay as long as he liked and to work with- 
out overmuch interference from Downing Street. 
Nominally he was merely " British Agent and Consul- 
General " at Cairo. What he was in reality was 
described by Mr. Perceval Landon in this picturesque 
way: 

43 



44 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

" Quite quietly and without further trumpetings and salutes 
than an official eulogy from those whose servant he has been 
for four and twenty years — and the usual 15-gun salute as his 
train steamed out from Cairo— the one absolute monarch in the 
world to-day resigned his throne on May 6th. There is never 
a crowned head east or west of Suez which possesses the uncon- 
ditioned autocracy which Lord Cromer has just laid down." 

Mr. Landon also tells the story of a perplexed 
American tourist who approached him in Cairo and 
requested an explanation of a poster that he had just 
seen on a schoolhouse. It was signed by Lord Cromer, 
the British Agent, and it said that since it had seemed 
good to the Agent (no reason given) to close this 
school, the school was and would henceforth remain 
shut. 
. " Just ' shut,' and no more about it," said the 

American. '' Now, who in is this Agent? Just 

' shut ' ! It's more like the Book of Genesis than any- 
thing I have struck yet." 

It is a significant fact that England has entrusted the 
remaking of Egypt to men who are thoroughly famil- 
iar with local conditions and who are willing to stay 
on the job — not merely to men who happened to be 
classmates of the appointing power. Lord Cromer 
was in Egypt almost continuously from 1877; Sir 
Eldon Gorst, the present British Pharaoh, went to the 
Nile in 1880; Sir Reginald Wingate, Governor-Gen- 
eral of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, has had a part in 
almost every important happening in its modern his- 
tory. " He was among the last men that saw Gordon ; 
he was one of those who welcomed Slatin back to 
Cairo after his eleven years' captivity in the Mahdi's 



THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 45 

country ; he was with Kitchener at Khartum ; he was 
with him at Fashoda when the famous interview oc- 
curred with Colonel Marchand." But think how many 
Governors we have had in Porto Rico and in the 
Philippines since 1898! 

How has it happened that a British Agent and 
Consul-General rules in the land of the Pharaohs — a 
land which is down on the map as a province of the 
Turkish Empire and has a Khedive of its own? Here 
is the story, in barest outline. The details are merci- 
fully omitted, for so good an authority as Lord Milner 
remarks that '' it is not given to mortal intelligence 
to master at one blow the complexities of Turkish 
suzerainty and foreign treaty rights." 

In 1863, Khedive Ismail came to the throne, his 
brain throbbing with big ideas. He was a royal 
financier — and a royal spender rarely surpassed in his- 
tory. Egypt was then fairly prosperous, with reve- 
nues sufficient to keep the antiquated wheels turning, 
and Ismail found his credit remarkably good in 
Europe. Everybody wanted to lend him money, so 
he sat up nights devising new ways of spending it. 
He succeeded so well that by the end of thirteen years 
he had advanced the national debt from about 
$15,000,000 to $425,000,000. During this period he 
and De Lesseps had built the Suez Canal — the Khedive 
retaining most of the shares. 

In 1876, Ismail found himself at the end of his 
rope, with howling creditors at the other end. In 
desperation, he offered his Canal shares to the Paris 



46 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

bankers. The Frenchmen saw the wisdom of an in- 
vestment of $20,000,000, but they hesitated until their 
Government should guarantee its safety. 

Somebody flashed the news across the Channel. 
The Suez Canal is England's short-cut to India; and, 
besides, most of the commerce that passes that way 
is British. It would never do to allow another Euro- 
pean nation to control the highway to the East, so 
Lord Beaconsfield went to the Rothschilds and asked 
for a loan of $20,000,000; as collateral, he offered his 
promise to ask Parliament to pay it back. He got 
the money, cabled to Cairo — and Great Britain became 
the principal stockholder in the Canal. The remarks 
of the French bankers when Paris got the news are 
not permitted under the regulations governing the 
transmission of books through the mail. 

This simple transaction laid the foundation for a 
world of trouble. In a short while it became impera- 
tive that England and France take charge of Egypt's 
finances in self-protection. Each country sent a com- 
missioner; the Englishman was a major in the Royal 
Artillery — one Evelyn Baring. The name sounded 
gentle and ladylike — but it was the future Lord 
Cromer who landed with the name. After a few 
months he was transferred to India as the financial 
adviser to his cousin, Lord Northbrook, who was then 
the Viceroy. 

But it was not so easy for England to get away from 
Egypt. Troubles began to pile up after Major Baring 
left. Finally a native oflicial, one Araby (not "the 
Blest") headed a Boxer-like movement for sending 



THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 47 

all Europeans back home — in coffins. There was a 
row at Alexandria, under the very guns of the British 
and French fleets, and scores of Europeans were mur- 
dered. Both fleets cleared for action, but the French- 
man received a cablegram and cleared for home. 

The English admiral then told Araby how much 
time he had in which to dismantle the Alexandrian 
forts. Araby put his hand over his mouth to restrain 
his merriment from becoming undignified. The Eng- 
lish cannon then put a number of shells where they did 
a lot of good. In retaliation, Araby prepared to cut 
off the water-supply of the European residents of 
Alexandria. England hurriedly attended to the for- 
malities written down in the book of international 
etiquette and then landed the marines. 

Araby left Alexandria and threatened the Canal. 
England called on the Powers to unite in its protection, 
but they were all too busy. France was then asked to 
help England save the work of De Lesseps's engineers, 
but its statesmen declined. England then put Tommy 
Atkins ashore at Ismailia. Tommy caught Araby at 
Tel-el-Kebir and made a good job of it. Araby dis- 
appeared over the horizon toward Constantinople ; two 
squadrons of English cavalry rode hard across the 
burning sands — and Cairo surrendered. Two days 
later, London notified Constantinople that Tommy 
w^ould be leaving for home shortly. That was in 1882, 
and London would not have believed that he would 
still be in Egypt to-day. 

It was really the Mahdi who blocked the game. 
When the Sudan began to seethe in rebellion, England 



48 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

loaned Gordon to Egypt as Governor-General of the 
Sudan, and this was intended to result in the evacua- 
tion of that part of the country. But when Gordon 
was making his great fight, public sentiment forced 
tlie Gladstone ministry to land more troops on Egyp- 
tian soil. Major Baring had meanwhile returned to 
Egypt, landing in the midst of these stirring events. 

These happenings are only part of a long chain. 
Just as they show England's justification for entering 
Egypt, many others could be given to justify Eng- 
land's slowness in departing. Of course, if one be 
determined upon it, it is easy to see in all this a pre- 
determined scheme of British imperialism. (Does not 
half of Europe still regard the Spanish- American war 
as a clever scheme of ours for seizing the Philippines?) 
But, all political considerations aside, the world is 
ready to admit that England's work in Egypt is ample 
justification for its occupation of the land. And the 
story of England in Egypt is largely the story of the 
Earl of Cromer. 

^ ^ ^ ^ 2jC 

Everybody knows that the Egypt of 1882 was one 
of the most hopeless lands in all the world. For cen- 
turies it had been the prey of the spoilers — " a satrapy 
of Persia, a colony of Greece, an estate of the Ptole- 
mies, a province of Rome, a dependency of the 
Arabian khalifate of Bagdad, and a pachalik of the 
Ottoman empire." Governor after governor, each 
with a different title but with the same insatiable greed 
for graft, ruled his little hour and went his way. To 
each, in turn, Egypt was a private plum-tree : he shook 



THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 49 

the tree and gathered the ripe plums until a stronger 
than he came up out of the sea and drove him away. 

Ismail had been deposed by Turkey three years be- 
fore, and his son Tewfik was a weakling. The finances 
of the country seemed hopelessly wrecked. Tewfik 
was surrounded by an official class made up of the 
most unscrupulous scoundrels that ever cursed a help- 
less people. Tewfik periodically caught '' the men 
higher up " by the heels and shook them until the 
pockets of their capacious bloomers were emptied of 
coin; the ''men higher up" then exercised the men 
lower down in the same way. The lowest-of -all-down, 
the fellaheen, had no coin, but the tax-gatherers were 
skilled to the point of extracting blood from a turnip. 
They did not come down upon the peasant at the time 
of harvest and carry away his crop; this was an old, 
unscientific practice. They came while his crop was 
growing. If he could not procure actual money, they 
beat him. At their next visit, he had the choice of 
the frying-pan and the fire: he could either sell his 
crop in the field at half its value, or he could mortgage 
it to the money-lender and pay 60 per cent, interest. 
The tax outlaw and the money-lender were usually in 
league with one another — and the Shylock of Shake- 
speare was a philanthropist in comparison with either. 
Simple justice and " a square deal " were dreams as 
remote as the Paradise of Mohammed. 

Major Baring knew all these distressing facts and 
more when he took up his work at the beginning of 
1884, but he did not get excited about it. He knew 
also that the task of cleaning up the land was not the 



50 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

worst of it. There was a Parliament across the water 
that might stop him at any moment ; there was a con- 
cert of fifteen Powers whose consent must be obtained 
before certain prescribed steps could be taken; there 
were European parasites in Egypt whom he could not 
call to account without the cooperation of their con- 
suls; and there was a Khedive and a sensitive native 
government whose pride must be preserved and in 
whose name everything must be done. It was a 
Western job to be done in an Oriental way. 

This Oriental way is the way that leads to mad- 
ness. Take, for example, the farce of Turkey's con- 
firmation of the present Khedive on the death of his 
father in 1892. Before the British fleet waiting in 
the harbour could fire the salute in his honour, it was 
necessary that the official firman from the Sultan of 
Turkey be read from the steps of the palace. All 
Cairo was kept in a state of agitation for weeks by 
conflicting reports about this important document. 
'' It had started. It had not started. It really would 
have started, but the caligraphy had at the last moment 
been found defective." The British admiral, 'over- 
come with weariness, steamed away. At sea, he met 
the ship bearing the firman and returned with it. 

A great Turkish dignitary brought it up to Cairo 
in a mysterious bag. The Khedive did not have the 
nerve to open it, lest it be found to contain " a joker." 
The dignitary was cross-questioned as to the nature 
of the document, but he was overwhelmed with regret 
at his ignorance of His August Majesty's business. 



THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 51 

Then he was reminded that it was customary for the 
ambassador to have a copy of it. True, a copy had 
been prepared for him, but it had not been deHvered 
before saihng time. And so the farce went on — '' the 
grave ambassador bowing over his bag, and his equally 
grave consignee declining to open it " — until all the 
diplomats in Cairo took a hand. The wires to Con- 
stantinople wxre kept red-hot until the Khedive re- 
ceived a cablegram from the Sultan which nerved him 
to open the bag. The gorgeous document was un- 
rolled and read with great ceremony — and there had 
been no mistake about the '' joker." Then the cable- 
gram removing it was read, and the salute was fired. 

It would be natural to suppose that this brusque 
Englishman, trained in a school which says to a man 
" Do this " and he doeth it, would clear away all this 
Oriental tape with one sweep of his artillery sword. 
But this he could not do, however much his soul may 
have longed for the privilege. He must do his work, 
but not in his own way; the overweening pride of a 
sensitive people must not be humiliated. The Khedive 
must remain the nominal head of the Government, 
and all the departments of that Government must be 
filled by native officials. He appointed an Englishman 
after his own heart as " adviser " to each official, but 
that meant unceasing demands upon his ingenuity and 
patience, for he was constantly called upon to adjust 
the relations between the officials and their English 
guardians. Furthermore, native officials were some- 
times misled by their outward show of authority, and 
did things without consulting their " advisers," and 



52 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

this called for the ungloved hand. The Khedive him- 
self made this mistake once — but only once. 

Leaping over the space of years that belong to the 
English occupation, glance at the Egypt of to-day. 
Its condition is more than the measure of England's 
justification: it is the measure of the Earl of Cromer 
as a builder and as a man. 

Cromer introduced into Egypt the Bank-of-London 
kind of finance, as opposed to the high finance of 
Ismail. He first did for the bankrupt country what 
Alexander Hamilton did for the impoverished colonies 
in the early days of our Republic — he put it on a 
sound-money basis. Foreign capital no longer fears 
for its safety; more remarkable yet, French capital 
(or any other capital) is just as safe as English capital. 
The finances of Egypt, in all their ramifications, have 
been handled in a masterly way — and in an honest 
way. 

Land values have advanced i,ooo per cent, during 
the same period. The extraordinary rise is due in 
part to the great Assouan dam and other works of 
irrigation, but it is also largely due to the fact that 
Cromer made it possible for the fellaheen to till the 
soil and eat the fruit of their hands. It seems a great 
thing to read of the thousands of acres that have been 
added to Egypt's agricultural area by the reclamation 
works; it is a vastly more important achievement that 
he has wrought in the conditions of life surrounding 
the fellaheen. No effort was made to be spectacular 
in this constructive work; the foundations were laid 



THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 53 

gradually and securely; no one claims that the task 
is done, but no one who knew the Egypt of 1882 ever 
expected to see in his lifetime the changes that have 
already taken place. The organization of the Agri- 
cultural Bank is a fair sample of England's creative 
work. It lends money to the fellaheen at reasonable 
interest, the principal to be repaid in instalments. 
Sir Eldon Gorst has said that the total annual pay- 
ment of principal and interest is less than the usurers 
formerly charged for interest alone. 

The reorganization of the native army is another 
example of good workmanship. When Cromer went 
down into Egypt, he found its army — as all the world 
knew — to be nothing more than a joke; he " advised " 
the Khedive that it be disbanded and a new army 
created. He also " suggested " the names of a few 
Enghsh officers who could turn the trick; one of these 
was named Kitchener. The briefest and most dramatic 
way to describe the result is to give three extracts. 

First, here is the Egyptian fighting man of 1884, 
as pictured by General Baker in a telegram announcing 
his defeat by the dervishes at El-Teb : 

" Marched yesterday morning with 3,500 towards Tokar. . . . 
Our square being only threatened by small force of enemy, cer- 
tainly less than 1,000 strong, the Egyptian troops threw down 
their arms and ran, allowing themselves to be killed without the 
slightest resistance. More than 2,000 killed. All material lost." 

The second part of the story is best told by Mr. 
Kipling in " Pharaoh and the Sergeant " : 



54 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

" Said England unto Pharaoh, ' I must make a man of you 
That will stand upon his feet and play the game, 
That will Maxim his oppressor as a Christian ought to do.* 

And she sent old Pharaoh Sergeant Whatisname. 
It was not a Duke, nor Earl, nor yet a Viscount 
It was not a big brass General that came; 
• But a man in khaki kit, who could handle men a bit, 
With his bedding labelled Sergeant Whatisname." 

The third part of the story was told in 1891 by 
Colonel Holled-Smith in his report of a fight on the 
same road to Tokar, with the same enemy, and under 
the same conditions — Egyptian troops and English 
officers in both cases : 

" The bulk of their [the dervishes'] force was directed against 
the line occupied by the 12th battalion, their attack being pushed 
home with their usual intrepidity and fearlessness. The troops, 
however, stood their ground and did not yield one inch through- 
out the line." 

England's work for education is no less revolu- 
tionary. It must be remembered that 91 per cent, of 
Egypt's population is Mohammedan, and that the 
Western idea of education is a new proposition. The 
schoolgirl, for instance, was formerly an unknown — 
almost an unthinkable — quantity; now there are cer- 
tainly more than 25,000 girls in Egyptian schools 
every year. The new movement is only begun, for 
Lord Cromer had a conviction that Egypt's great need 
is for agricultural and trade schools. This system is 
being slowly built up, for first must come primary 
teaching. It is pleasing to know, incidentally, that 
Lord Cromer did not consider himself foreordained 



THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 55 

to make English the language of the world. He 
insisted that instruction be given to Egyptian children 
in their native tongue. 

The contrast between the old and the new in higher 
education can be shown by brief reference to two great 
institutions. At Cairo is a Mohammedan '' uni- 
versity " which was old when the Universities of Ox- 
ford, Paris, and Berlin were founded. Judged by the 
number of its pupils, it is one of the largest in the 
world; judged by its work, it is one of the deadest. 
Its young men squat around ancient theologues and 
commit to memory passages from the Koran and other 
books, written in a form of Arabic now almost un- 
intelligible even to Arabs. The influence of this 
'■' university " — with its 10,000 students and its 300 
" professors " — is about as progressive as that of the 
mummies on exhibition in the great museum at Cairo. 

At Khartum, on the banks of the Nile, stands Gor- 
don Memorial College — the university of to-morrow — 
a training school established on the spot where Gor- 
don fell. In 1898, Khartum was the stronghold of 
the Mahdi's successor. Now it has a college with three 
departments : ( i ) a normal school that is training 
young men to become teachers and judges; (2) a 
primary school for a larger number of pupils, most of 
whom will eventually hold government positions; (3) 
a manual training department which will furnish the 
land with its much-needed artisans. 

This university w^as in the mind of the poet who 
loudest and best sings the glories of the English 
when he wrote : 



56 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

" They terribly carpet the earth with dead, 
and before their cannon cool 
They walk unarmed by twos and threes 
to call the living to school." 



Mr. Kipling did not consider it worth while to say 
that Kitchener's army (which did the carpeting) 
marched past more than a hundred American schools 
before it reached the junction of the Blue and the 
White Nile. Nor will you find proper recognition of 
this fact in any of the official reports of the British 
occupation. The fact remains, however, that while 
United States troops have never strewn Egypt with 
dead, United Presbyterian missionaries have called 
about as many of its living to school as Lord Cromer 
did in the course of his long reign. And, in point of 
practical efficiency, Assiut College has done more than 
Gordon University to train young Egypt. This in- 
conspicuous benevolence of the United Presbyterians 
of America already extends beyond Khartum; at 
Doleib Hill, 400 miles farther into the dreary waste 
of the Sudan, a graduate of the Iowa Agricultural 
College is teaching a tribe of wild men about the life 
that now is, as well as about that which is to come. 

The whole story of British rule in Egypt was fairly 
summed up by Mr. Roosevelt in a speech that stirred 
all England in 1910: 

"You have given Egypt the best government it has had for 
at least 2,000 years. The only reason I put in the 2,000 is that I 
happen not to know the details of the government of the Ptol- 
emies. Probably j^our government is better than any government 
Egypt ever had before, for never in history has the poor man 



THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 57 

in that country, the tiller of the soil, the ordinary labourer, been 
treated with as much justice and mercy, under a rule as free 
from corruption and brutality, as during the last twenty-eight 
years." 

This was not the language of rhetoric. Criticise 
the British method as severely as you will — it remains 
true that justice is no longer a thing to be bought and 
sold in the land of Goshen. " The courbash may 
hang on the wall of the Moudirieh, but the Moudir 
no longer dares to employ it on the backs of the 
fellaheen." Surely this is a great achievement. 

For the transformation that has been wrought, 
credit must go in large measure to the Earl of Cromer. 
It goes without saying that much of the work has 
been accomplished by his associates, but Cromer de- 
serves credit for knowing how to pick men for difficult 
tasks. It is also much to his credit that he gave his 
younger associates opportunity to distinguish them- 
selves, when another type of man might have taken 
the honours to himself. 

" When I came to Egypt," he once said to a friend, 
" I made up my mind that the work was big enough 
for the life of one man, and that I would devote my 
life to it and not ask promotion until I had made it a 
complete success." And even the proffer of a Cabinet 
position did not change his purpose. 

One of the great factors in his success was his 
thorough honesty. He undoubtedly had opportunities 
a-plenty for enriching himself — which Egypt expected 
him to do — but at the close of a quarter-century he 



58 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

left Egypt with his integrity unimpeached. " The idea 
that Lord Cromer would allow any suspicious deal 
whatever," remarked a native connected with the 
financial board, "is so absolutely impossible that one 
does not stop even to consider it." His administrative 
policy was admirably stated by Lord Milner some years 
ago: "The appHcation of a reasonable amount of 
common sense and common honesty to a country 
ruined by the absence of both." 

When it is remembered that Lord Cromer had to 
deal with three widely differing nationalities — the 
spineless native, the impetuous Frenchman, and his 
own stiff-necked countryman — it is perhaps not to be 
wondered at that he should have suffered adverse 
criticism at times. Men occasionally went to his office 
expecting to meet a diplomat, with bland, unctuous 
Oriental manners; they found an Anglo-Saxon, plain 
and blunt. Matter-of-fact he undoubtedly was — but 
he carried burdens enough to drive the affability from 
the most genial temperament. Hard to get along with, 
some have said; but the records of the service of his 
English associates seems to indicate some affection 
either for Cromer or for the job. 

To the end of his long service in the midst of 
Oriental peoples, Cromer remained an Englishman. 
Others of his countrymen have become semi-Oriental- 
ized, but not he. You will look in vain for a photo- 
graph of him in Eastern garb, with decorations strung 
over his breast. And yet the initials of the distinctions 
that have been conferred upon him would extend more 
than across a page. 



THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 59 

Of the future of Egypt without Cromer some 
speak with misgiving. But the first Pharaoh of the 
British dynasty closes his own record with these 
words : 

" According to Eastern adage, the grass never grows again 
where once the hoof of the Sultan's horse has trod. In the 
sorely tried country of which this history treats, the hoof of the 
Turkish horse, whether the rider were Sultan or Khedive, has 
indeed left a deep impression. Nevertheless I would fain hope 
it is not indelible. 

" We are justified in substituting a sanguine in the place of 
a despondent metaphor. Where once the seeds of true Western 
civilization have taken root so deeply as is now the case in 
Egypt, no retrograde forces, however malignant they may be, 
will in the end be able to check germination and ultimate 
growth. . . . We have dealt a blow to the forces of reaction 
in Egypt from which they can never recover — and from which, if 
England does her duty towards herself, towards the Egyptian 
people, and towards the civilized world, they will never have a 
chance to recover." 



It was a piece of good fortune that Egypt had 
identified with its modern history two such remarkable 
Englishmen as Cromer and Gordon — as far removed 
from each other in temperament, in habits of thought, 
and in purpose of life as the West is distant from the 
East. The names of these two men are engraved in 
its modern history as ineffaceably as the names of 
Rameses and Cleopatra in the history that has been 
rolled up like a scroll. Throughout a few dramatic 
months, the careers of the two Englishmen were 
bound up together, for Lord Cromer was the connect- 
ing link between Khartum and London when Gordon 



60 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

made his last fight. So, when the reviewers took up 
the Earl of Cromer's notable book, " Modern Egypt " 
—fitting climax to his fifty years of military and civil 
service — they instinctively turned first of all to see 
what the diplomat had to say concerning the soldier. 

The Earl of Cromer is to be commended for the 
spirit of frankness and fairness with which he dis- 
cusses the Sudan campaign, not hesitating to criti- 
cize the acts of others and not sparing himself. He 
consistently reaffirms his own judgment that no Eng- 
lishman should have been sent to Khartum — certainly 
not Gordon, whose appointment he had twice opposed 
— and regrets that he allowed the combined judgment 
of others to finally make him distrust his own. How- 
ever, the people of England had made up their mind 
that the native garrisons in the Sudan must be relieved, 
and that Gordon was the one man in the British army 
to execute the task. And, in passing, it may be re- 
marked that the English people seem very well pleased 
with the manner in which Gordon kept the faith. 

To Lord Cromer's credit be it said that, when Eng- 
land had determined to send Gordon, he backed him 
up to the full extent of his power. '' General Gordon 
was no friend to the particular official class to which 
I belonged," he says; and, on the other hand, Cromer 
had no great admiration for an officer " who habitually 
consults the Prophet Isaiah when he is in a difficulty." 
Yet the official correspondence of that period shifts the 
blame of Gordon's death from Cairo to London. 
Here is where the Earl of Cromer places the blame 
for the unforgetable tragedy at Khartum : 



THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 61 

" Mr. Gladstone's error of judgment in delaying too long the 
despatch of the Nile expedition left a stain on the reputation of 
England which it will be beyond the power of either the impartial 
historian or the partial apologist to explain." 

He says also that the reason why it was sanctioned 
too late was that " Mr. Gladstone would not accept 
simple evidence of a plain fact, which was patent to 
much less powerful intellects than his own." 

Under the spell of the Earl of Cromer's charming 
style, it is easy to feel that Gordon has perhaps been 
too highly idealized by the Anglo-Saxon. But when 
the book is laid aside and the soldier's entire dramatic 
life passes in review, the diplomat's logic loses much 
of its convincingness. After all, he has told us noth- 
ing about Gordon that we did not already know — 
nothing that England did not know when it insisted on 
his appointment. Statesmen and diplomats feared 
that Gordon's religious convictions would alienate the 
Arab tribes that still remained loyal, overlooking the 
fact that Gordon had governed in the Sudan before 
and that most of his life had been spent among peoples 
whose religions differed widely from his own. Aside 
from this objection, the only indictment that Lord 
Cromer brings against him are those of inconsistency 
and " impulsive flightiness." Men who have served in 
Egypt have said worse things about Cromer. In- 
consistent Gordon unquestionably was, and this to the 
very end; but it was inconsistency vastly more sublime 
than that of the men who sealed his doom with official 
tape. It was most inconsistent in a British officer to 
stand on the steps of the Khartum palace at sunrise. 



62 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

dressed in his white uniform, and receive the final 
onslaught of the Mahdists as calmly as if he were 
holding a Governor's reception — not even drawing his 
sword — but this was exactly the manner in which Eng- 
land believed that Gordon had died, even before eye- 
witnesses confirmed the fact. After the last word has 
been said about his " errors of judgment " and his 
" flightiness," the reader can recall that the overlords 
of England found it necessary to send Kitchener thir- 
teen years later to do exactly what Gordon had yearned 
to do. 

Lord Cromer acknowledges that the main lines of 
Gordon's character were worthy of admiration, that 
his religion was sincere, his private life unquestionably 
pure. He admits also that the man was wholly un- 
moved by any considerations of rank or money, and 
that it was no idle boast when he sent an aide to '' tell 
all the people in Khartum that Gordon fears nothing, 
for God has created him without fear." Surely, it 
would seem, such remarkable qualities in a governor of 
alien tribes are not altogether outweighed by incon- 
sistency and impulsiveness in matters of detail. At any 
rate, the postscript of Gordon's letter — " I am quite 
happy, thank God, and like Lawrence I have tried to 
do my duty " — will be remembered as long as anything 
that the Earl of Cromer has written in his book. 

As men come and go in the great Egyptian Sudan 
in the years that unfold, the measure of Gordon will 
become more and more impressive. Slowly but surely, 
across the dunes of the ancient empire of the Pto- 
lemies, rises the dawn that has never in all history 



THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 63 

illumined the Sudan — and that dawn has thrown 
against the sky the silhouette of the hero of Khartum. 
By and by, when dawn shall have passed into merid- 
ian and meridian into twilight and the new Sudanese 
empire shall have gone the way of all empires, then 
the backward shadow cast by the afterglow will be 
that of Gordon. His is the one imperishable memory 
between Alexandria and the Nyanzas. 

For Cromer's sake, rather than Gordon's, it is a 
pleasure to find this final tribute, by way of summary : 

" In the course of this narrative, I have alluded to General 
Gordon's numerous inconsistencies. I have pointed out errors 
of judgment with which he may justly be charged. I have dwelt 
on defects of character which unsuited him for the conduct of 
political affairs. But, when all this has been said, how grandly 
the character of the man comes out in the final scene of the 
Soudan tragedy. ... He died in the plenitude of his reputa- 
tion, and left a name which will be revered so long as the quali- 
ties of steadfast faith and indomitable courage have any hold 
on the feelings of mankind." 



IV 
FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 

SUPPOSE that a mehari camel with a speed of 
fifty miles a day (the mehari is the Mauretania 
of the desert liners, just as the ordinary camel 
is a cargo-boat) were to start southward from Algiers 
and follow the straight course of the crow. He would 
come out at Cotonou, on the Gulf of Guinea, forty- 
two days later. Let another mehari start from Dakar 
(on the West Coast) and make a bee-line for the 
Darfour boundary of the Egyptian Sudan : He would 
reach it two weeks after the first camel had groaningly 
anchored on the Guinea Coast. Let a third camel 
start from Tangier in the direction of Fez, and con- 
tinue southeastward at the fifty-mile rate: He would 
reach the Bahr-el-Ghazal province of the Sudan in 
two months. 

The first camel would cover a distance equal to that 
between New York and Santa Fe; the second would 
travel as far as it is from Pittsburg to San Francisco ; 
the trail of the third would reach from New York 
across the continent to Portland, Ore. Yet every 
one of the cloven footprints of each camel would be 
in French soil or within the French '* sphere of in- 
fluence." Such is the extent of France's continuous 
empire in the Dark Continent. 

64 



FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 65 

Of course, it is technically incorrect to include 
Morocco within the French imperial fence — and yet 
who of those who know the facts would exclude 
Egypt from the British Empire because it happens 
to be labelled '' Turkish " on the map? It is true that 
Morocco has — at least, many people think that it has 
— an independent government with a Sultan holding 
Oriental court at Fez. It is true, also, that the Spanish 
claims upon Morocco are much older than those of 
France, and they actually occupy a larger part of its 
area. Nevertheless I build the fence of the French 
Empire around Morocco. 

It should be remembered that the destinies of 
African states and tribes are not fixed in Africa, but 
in Europe — and the likes and dislikes of the subject 
races have little to do with the fixing. By the grace 
of the nation whose big guns are mounted on Gibral- 
tar, Morocco is recognized as a French " sphere of in- 
fluence." By all African precedents, the land of the 
Moor should next become a French protectorate — and 
the process of " protecting " has already begun. The 
final step will be annexation. 

But suppose the Moors object? So did the Arabs 
of Algeria and so did the Kabyles of the hills. But 
suppose that complications with Germany arise ? Very 
well : There are the yawning guns on Gibraltar and 
the big grey ships lying in the shadow of the Rock — 
and never did Briton and Frenchman love each other 
so dearly as now. Of course, if the dogs of war 
break their leash, it may be necessary to make a new 
map with Morocco outside the French fence. On the 



66 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

other hand, there is the possibiHty that France's barbed 
wire would be extended around German Togoland and 
the Cameroons. Lots of things will happen in Africa 
when Europe goes to war; the fence-builder can only 
follow the line of human probability. 

For convenience we may split the empire up in this 
way: Tunis is about as large as North Carolina; 
Algeria would contain New York, New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky ; into Morocco you might 
place Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; 
French West Africa would make twenty-five states the 
size of Kentucky; French Guinea is as large as 
Oregon; the Ivory Coast is twice the size of Michigan; 
six New Hampshires could be placed in " little " 
Dahomey; the French Congo would make eight big 
states like Illinois; and the Sahara alone is nearly as 
large as the whole of the United States or of Europe. 

Nobody knows how many people live in some parts 
of the empire, but it is safe to say the Tricolour waves 
over 38,000,000 African subjects, counting the 2,500,- 
000 in Madagascar. In thinking of the French, there- 
fore, it is approximately accurate to consider every 
other Frenchman as either an Arab or a Moor or a 
Negro. 

Marseilles is the great port from which go most 
of the steamships that carry into French Africa the 
complex cargo of white civilization — governors and 
traders, soldiers and missionaries, machinery and mail, 
merchandise and absinthe. The gates of entry are 
many, for the empire's headlands are washed on the 



FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 67 

north by the quiet waters of the Mediterranean, and 
on the west and south by the rolHng billows of the 
Atlantic. Every one of the great divisions except 
the Sahara has its water-front; and even the Desert 
has its inland " seas " and " lakes " of sand, with a 
picturesque " fleet " of four-legged freighters. Omit- 
ting a score of minor ports (any one of which may 
be a commercial metropolis to-morrow), Tunisia has 
Tunis, Sousse, Sfax, and the naval base at Bizerte; 
Algeria is entered at Algiers and Oran; Morocco has 
Tangier, Casablanca, and Mogador; Dakar and St. 
Louis are gateways into the Senegal and upper Niger 
regions; and Conakry (French Guinea) is one of the 
big names on the West Coast. The two colonies that 
front on the Gulf of Guinea welcome the steamers 
from France at Grand-Bassam, Assinie, and Cotonou; 
Libreville (on the equator) and Loango are gate- 
ways into the coastal region of the French Congo, but 
the lonely men " sitting tight " on the hot outposts 
between the Congo Free State, and Lake Chad receive 
their two-months-old letters and their '^ chop-boxes " 
from the small steamers that ascend the Shari and 
Ouibangui Rivers. And all the steamers of this com- 
mercial navy weigh anchor for the homeland with rich 
and varied cargoes that need no longer wait upon the 
whims of haggling natives on weekly market-days. 

Except in North Africa, the hoarse salute of the 
steamship's whistle is seldom answered by the shrill 
voice of the little French locomotive, but every little 
line of steel is strategic. French Guinea has under 



68 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

construction a railroad from Conakry to the begin- 
ning of navigation on the Niger — 230 miles, of which 
half is completed; the Ivory Coast and Dahomey are 
slowly pushing rails toward the Niger; and Morocco 
now has its first railroad, a military convenience, be- 
ginning at Casablanca, and almost ending there. 

The most important system of transportation be- 
tween the Sahara and the Congo begins in French 
West Africa. When the big cargo-boats swing around 
the island of Goree and warp alongside the big stone 
docks inside the breakwater at Dakar, they find 164 
miles of railroad running northward to St. Louis, at 
the mouth of the Senegal River. (At certain seasons, 
ocean-going steamers may enter the Senegal and avoid 
the freight haul.) From St. Louis eastward into what 
was once known as the Sudan, the Senegal river- 
steamers run as far as Kayes, the head of navigation. 
At Kayes the railroad takes up the cargo and carries 
it to Koulikoro (350 miles to the eastward), and turns 
it over to the Niger boats that steam up to Timbuctu. 
Meanwhile, the British in the Nigerias have been 
working up the Niger from its mouth toward Tim- 
buctu. Whenever it shall seem practicable for Eng- 
land or France to overcome a series of rapids between 
Timbuctu and Baro, there will be a continuous system 
of steam transportation from the mouth of the Senegal 
(on the Atlantic) to the mouth of the Niger — a dis- 
tance of nearly 3,000 miles. 

It is to Algeria and Tunis that one must go for 
an appreciation of the French genius in railroad build- 



FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 69 

ing. A total of 2,500 miles seems but a trifle to a 
nation of railroad builders like the United States, but 
it has already revolutionized that ancient, stagnant 
land known as the Barbary Coast. Three private 
French companies and the Algerian Government have 
laid track across mountains and plains and desert, all 
so connected as to form a trunk-line from Sousse on 
the east to Oran on the west, with a score of branch 
lines extending northward and southward. Year by 
year the engineers are pushing the track from oasis 
to oasis and saying to the camel caravan : " From this 
point your services are no longer required." All over 
the land you will find the stage-coach in waiting where 
the railroad leaves off. From Biskra, for example, 
you may go in two days to Tougourt — an oasis where 
the mercury almost boils in the thermometer. There 
the camel takes the white man's burden and mail on 
to the oasis of Ouargla — 219 miles from the end of 
the railroad. From Oran southward into the Desert 
runs a government railroad, and a trans-Saharan rail- 
road from Colomb-Bechar to Timbuctu and Gao on 
the Niger is in the project stage. Through trains 
from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Guinea may 
yet be in operation before you can check your bag- 
gage from the Cape to Cairo. 

There is already a regular postal service entirely 
across the Sahara. From the Mediterranean to In- 
Salah there are two lines — one through Biskra, Tou- 
gourt, and Ouargla; the other via the oasis of La- 
ghouat, Ghardaia, and El Golea. From In-Salah other 
camels carry the mail to the Niger at Gao. From Gao 



70 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HEL:\IET 

it is distributed in several directions, even as far as 
Zinder and Lake Chad. The Signal Corps has in the 
meantime been stringing its wires southward from 
Colomb-Bechar and northward from Timbuctu; from 
a hut of sun-baked mud-bricks in the heart of the 
Great Desert, a lonely French exile will transmit your 
cablegram to any part of the far-away world. 

The best preparation for a report on the white 
man's work in French Africa is to travel quietly 
through the country and observe him at his task. Let 
us therefore dismiss from present consideration every- 
thing south of the Sahara, for that belongs to Black 
Man's Africa. The northern half of the empire — the 
land of the Arab and the Moor — is wholly a different 
problem. 

Perhaps there is no other part of Africa that offers 
side by side such good examples of the three stages 
of white occupation — " sphere of influence," '' pro- 
tectorate," and " colony " — as Morocco, Tunisia, and 
Algeria. 

When the rugged outline of the Barbary Coast 
looriis up before the traveller's eye for the first time, 
his thoughts instinctively go back to the days when 
the only white men in Africa were in Moorish prisons 
or were toiling as the slaves of Turkish masters. Then 
the coast-line w^s punctuated with the watch-towers of 
the Corsairs and lighted only by the moon and stars; 
now the ships of the nations come and go at will, 
guided by beacons that wink at one another from 
headland to headland. No lookout in the " crow's- 



FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 71 

nest " of a liner, no fisherman in his sail-boat, ever 
thinks of watching the horizon for the " rakish craft " 
of our dime-novel days. The history of navigation in 
this part of the world began a new chapter in 1815, 
with an American frigate as its initial letter, for 
Commodore Decatur applied the principle of " not one 
cent for tribute " to everything on the high seas except 
the stewards of ocean liners. 

Though piracy is one of the lost arts, there is plenty 
of evidence to prove that Morocco is only a " sphere 
of influence." I touched it first at the Spanish penal 
colony at Melilla, where the fight with the Rifflans 
was already under way; and I saw no more light- 
houses until we headed for Tangier — not even on one 
headland from which half -submerged rocks extended 
half a mile to seaward. Cape Spartel, the north- 
western corner of Africa, has a powerful beacon, but 
something like $300 of good American money has been 
going every year into the general fund contributed by 
Europe to keep it burning. There is not a port in 
Morocco where big steamers can discharge passengers 
and cargo on a pier; at Tangier, for instance, they 
. anchor in deep water and unload into lighters and 
row-boats manned by yelling, insistent Moors whose 
tumult is a vivid reminder of the pirates' regime. 

After you convince the Moorish officials sitting at 
the receipt of custom that your trunk contains nothing 
to swell their bank-account, you have the option of a 
donkey or a carrier, for the Tangier hotels have no 
omnibuses and the streets are not made for vehicles. 



72 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

On the way through the crowded lane that leads from 
the port, you back into a doorway now and then and 
w^it until a donkey carrying water and one from 
the opposite direction carrying lumber decide which 
shall back up and let the other pass. At the hotel you 
learn that the city has no ice-factory; when you call 
for postage-stamps you learn that Morocco has found 
it thoroughly convenient to worry along without post- 
offices. Looking seaward from the hotel on a busy 
day in the harbour, you may count four warships but 
not more than three merchantmen. 

It would be superfluous to continue the specifica- 
tions; here you have only a "sphere of influence." 
Now let us see what a French " protectorate " looks 
like. 

Tunisia has for twenty-seven years been a " pro- 
tectorate " (or a ''regency") of France. The Bey 
still lolls in his Oriental palace, drives through the 
streets of Tunis in his six-mule carriage, and presides 
over the dispensary of Moslem justice; but his " Min- 
ister of Foreign Affairs " grips all the powers of a 
governor-general under his modest cloak of " Resident- 
General of France." In order that there might be no 
misunderstanding about this, the "treaty" of 1881 
was amended and the Bey is under promise " to carry 
out all administrative reforms, judicial and financial, 
that the French government shall consider necessary." 
To one of France's ablest administrators, M. Cambon, 
was assigned the delicate task of remodelling the 
Tunisian government on French lines, and his sue- 



FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 73 

cessors have consistently followed those lines. With 
what results ? 

It was at Tunis that I first touched African soil, 
and I saw more high-grade civilization in the first 
half-hour than I had seen in Naples in three days. 
Instead of anchoring at La Goulette, seven miles dis- 
tant, as ships formerly did, the steamer glided through 
a ship-canal into a capacious harbour where twenty or 
more steamers were loading and unloading, and 
dropped its anchor alongside an excellent dock. From 
the custom-house (where my baggage was not even 
unstrapped) a hotel omnibus drove through a broad, 
well-paved, absolutely clean boulevard, down the 
centre of which I had a long vista of beautiful trees — 
all this where the French found a noxious marsh. 
Telephone wires, artistic iron posts surmounted by 
arc-lights, neat little towers for the bill-poster, letter- 
boxes, trolley-cars, and even electric trains were con- 
spicuously present. Long lines of carriages were in 
waiting beside the curb, and several automobile 
garages were in sight. Here was a cathedral, there 
a palace, yonder a handsome theatre; and on both 
sides were open-air cafes thronged with well-dressed 
men and women. On one side were the arcades of 
department stores — '' Au Nouveau Louvre," etc. — 
which would attract attention on New York's Fifth 
Avenue. On the newstands were half a dozen Tunis 
dailies, while Le Matin and Le Journal (two or three 
days from Paris) were everywhere. The native popu- 
lation, more numerous than the white, was well- 
dressed, picturesque, and apparently satisfied with life; 



74 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

certainly there were few examples of squalid poverty. 
Through the middle of the street stalked a turbaned 
Arab with a phonograph (horn and all) on his head; 
further along was a red-fezzed Jew carrying a 
familiar American sewing-machine in the same man- 
ner. The hotel had nearly everything, from ice to 
perfumed tooth-picks, that one expects in a fine 
American hotel — and at about one-half the cost. 

When I passed through the Gate of France into 
the Arab city, I found its narrow, winding streets 
clean, well-lighted, labelled at every turn, and even 
the Arab houses were numbered. At any hour of 
the night I could pass alone in perfect safety, though 
a native gendarme might not be seen for an hour — 
an experiment that I would not advise in Naples, 
where I found a man's hand in my pocket, in a public 
place. It is true that the Arab city is merely clean, 
not made over; true that in the fascinating quarter 
given over to its famous souks and bazaars you may 
still see the craftsmen spinning and weaving and 
pounding in the same crude way that the Phoenicians 
worked yonder on the hill of Carthage; but the result 
is very pleasing and also very honest. Yet the num- 
ber of natives sitting at American sewing-machines 
shows that the era of labour-saving machinery has 
begun. It is also true that those who work for wages 
receive only a pittance, but they have money to spend 
in the cafes, they are in every trolley-car, and the 
Tunisian trains are often crowded with them. 

Right here let it be said that if the host of Ameri- 
cans who trot around Europe could realize how much 



FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 75 

more they may get for their money in an Oriental city 
like Tunis — whose charm is to be compared only with 
Constantinople and Cairo — the guides would soon find 
it necessary to learn English. I can think of no other 
trip out of New York that yields so much and such 
varied pleasure for the same expenditure of time and 
money. But it is highly essential to enjoyment that 
some member of every party understand a little 
French. Better two weeks of Tunis than two months 
north of the Mediterranean; and you need not worry 
much about the climate at any season of the year, un- 
less you are a weakling. 

The traveller who passes from Tunisia across the 
rugged frontier of Algeria makes the transition from 
a '' protectorate " to a possession — merely a difference 
of about fifty years. 

Here is a French colony with a mongrel govern- 
ment, a mixture of monarchy and republicanism. A 
Governor-General sits at Algiers with such plenary 
powers as those of making out the budget, contracting 
loans, and appointing Cabinets. But the French Min- 
ister of the Interior has jurisdiction over all his acts, 
and a council of local officials is supposed to advise 
him. Vox populi is expressed in two ways : ( i ) 
Algeria sends Senators and Deputies to what corre- 
sponds in France to our Congress; (2) and '' financial 
delegations " — representing the French colonists, the 
French tax-payers other than colonists, and the native 
Arabs — may vote on the budget. We have no form 
of government exactly like it; it is a mixture of 



76 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Oklahoma (the Indians corresponding to the Arabs) 
and the PhiHppines. 

The Arabs outnumber the foreigners four to one 
in Algeria, but it now has a permanent foreign popula- 
tion of about 400,000. About three-fourths of these 
foreigners are French; the others are Spaniards, 
Italians, Jews, Moroccans, etc. Algiers and Oran are 
the chief cities; in population they rank with Kansas 
City and Los Angeles. A military force of 56,000 
men (nearly half of them being enlisted natives) is in 
the field, but the expense is borne by France instead of 
being charged against the colony. 

Algeria is a stern, grim-visaged land which has suf- 
fered much at the hands of the centuries. Its ancient 
forests have vanished and only a pitiful brushwood 
remains ; the torrents have washed bare the rugged hills 
and cut great furrows down every slope. Only the 
valleys remain for agriculture and grazing, yet 200,000 
white colonists are making northern Algeria into 
another France. About three million acres in wheat, 
three other millions in barley, and at least three 
hundred thousand acres of vines, and thirteen million 
olive-trees — this exhibit shows the changes that the 
Frenchman is introducing into a landscape so dreary 
that a less optimistic government would turn away in 
despair. But the French capitalists who own mineral 
concessions in Algeria are less considerate than the 
government. They have been carting away into 
France about two million dollars' worth of phosphates 
a year — nutrition which nature had evidently stored 
away for Algeria's own hour of need. This is one 



FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 77 

of the most serious blunders that has happened under 
the French flag. 

He who is possessed with the idea that the British 
are the great builders in Africa should travel over 
the colonies of France. The splendid engineering 
triumphs in railroading and harbour-construction; the 
two thousand miles of beautiful roadway that cuts 
even through the hills of Kabylia; the electric lights 
and tramways and telephones ; the seven hundred post- 
offices handling seventy million pieces of mail a year; 
nine thousand miles of telegraph line transmitting 
three million messages annually — such figures as these 
indicate that the Frenchman has a serious and con- 
structive side that we are not familiar with. And he 
has faith, too — faith in his colonies and in his own 
genius — for he builds with his own money and trusts 
the future of the colonies for his repayment. 

The critical observer may of course find much in 
French North Africa to criticise, alongside the much 
that he commends. The American is pleased with 
the network of railroads and macadamized highways, 
but he deplores the obvious scarcity of labour-saving 
devices; yet Algeria alone imports something like a 
million dollars' worth of machinery a year. He will 
also miss the little red schoolhouse from the landscape, 
but the education of Mohammedan children has 
problems that no nation has yet mastered. The Eng- 
lishman frets because the shipping in the harbours 
does not fiy the Union Jack, and because Manchester- 
made goods do not have what he considers a square 



78 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

deal; but the Frenchmen think they have a right to 
the ground-floor in their own establishment. 

Probably the most serious criticism that can be made 
is that France is apparently administering the country 
more in the interests of the French colonist than for 
the welfare of the native. The Frenchman seems to 
own all of the choicest " bottom " land and the well- 
watered plains ; the French are the beneficiaries of the 
mineral deposits; and even the ill-favoured Jews 
(African born) have come into French citizenship in 
advance of the Arabs, though they are not much higher 
in the scale of civilization. The only answer to these 
and other specifications is, that it remains to be seen 
if there be any large portion of Africa that is being 
administered primarily on a philanthropic basis. 

In seeking for a universal test to apply to the work 
of all white men in Africa, the mind always comes 
back to the benediction of Livingstone — the one over- 
shadowing memory in the Dark Continent — and to the 
words engraved upon his tomb : 

" All I can add, in my loneliness, is : may Heaven's rich blessing 
come down on everyone — American, English, or Turk — who will 
help to heal the open sore of the world." 

One may have in mind all the colonial crimes that 
have been charged to the account of France and still 
say that — unless Livingstone's influence at the Throne 
be over-estimated — the French are in line for this 
blessing. 



THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 

A SOLID mass of 30,000,000 French Moham- 
medans to-day stands facing a civihzation 
which it can neither resist nor evade — an 
economical fact that makes the Arab loom large 
against the African sky. All in all there are probably 
55,000,000 of brown and black Moslems north of the 
equator — and this is only one of the large units in a 
Mohammedan population that numbers about 235,000,- 
000 throughout the world. 

The fact that all North Africa is being revolu- 
tionized — by the British in Egypt and by the French 
along the Barbary Coast — fades into lesser significance 
in the light of the fact that a semi-barbarous race is 
now in the first stages of its regeneration. 

The country itself has been " revolutionized " many 
times, but not since the days of the Prophet has the 
Arab changed in character. He has worn the same 
costume, eaten the same coarse food, marketed the 
same little handful of products in the same pitiful way, 
read the same Book, chanted the same prayers, and 
lived the same listless, ignoble life as the Arabs of the 
centuries that have folded up their tents and vanished 
into the night. Missionaries of many creeds have 
laboured to induce him to change most of these, 

79 



80 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

especially the ignoble life, but the Arab has stuck to 
his Koran like a barnacle to a rotting hulk. 

One of the most capable churchmen of modern times, 
Cardinal Lavigerie, conceived an imperial plan and 
sent a militant corps of White Fathers even into the 
Sahara, but the Cardinal sleeps in princely state on 
the hill of Carthage while the muezzin and not his 
cathedral-chimes calls the Arab to prayer. Down the 
long lane of the ages this picturesque and not unlov- 
able race has plodded its way contentedly, but the 
perspective shows the white burnmise and the brown 
jelab now at the turn of the lane. Beyond the bend 
will emerge a new type of African — the French Arab. 

The Arab and the Moor are as unfathomable as the 
Japanese, and no man who thinks in straight lines may 
expect to thoroughly understand them. But it is fairly 
accurate to interpret the Mussulman in the light of the 
Koran, for Islam is essentially a religion of externals 
and it governs the minute details of the daily life. The 
African Arab and the Moor are neither better nor 
worse than the Koran requires or permits. 

The kernel is essentially the same, regardless of the 
shell; a keen eye may differentiate the Kabyle from 
the Arab in the streets of Algiers and pick out the 
Berbers from the Moors in the great market at Tan- 
gier, but in nine cases out of ten it is some peculiarity 
of costume or the manner of wearing the hair that 
leads to the diagnosis. Whatever the differences in 
the skin or under it, they are so overshadowed by the 
sameness of the things that make up a Mohammedan's 



THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 81 

daily life as to be practically obliterated. So far as 
the North African's relation to the white man is con- 
cerned, racial origin makes little difference; the im- 
pervious creed of Islam that cements into a con- 
glomerate mass the various tribes unites them also to 
all the allied races that recognize Allah as God and 
Mohammed as the Prophet of God. Whether he have 
the fair complexion of the original Berbers, the pot- 
black skin of the Sudanese, or the brown of a lineage 
that goes back to the Prophet himself, the North 
African offers the same passive resistance to the white 
man and to what we call civilization. The resistance 
is passive from necessity, not from choice. 

It is inevitable that such be the case; to act other- 
wise would smack of apostasy and treason. Were 
Islam only a religion, it might continue to flourish side 
by side with the altars that the white race is building 
under the shadow of every minaret. But the scheme 
of the Prophet made no provision for the guidance of 
his followers under other than Moslem rulers. Forced 
by present circumstances to live out his life as one of 
a subject race, ruled by men whom his creed has 
taught him to spurn, the Mussulman is now confronted 
with this dilemma: Either he must renounce his an- 
cestral faith (which is equivalent to denationalization) 
and become an '' infidel," or he must remodel his creed 
and make it fit into the white man's scheme of civiliza- 
tion. It is this dilemma that makes the North African, 
standing to-day at the parting of the ways, one of the 
most interesting characters in a land of strange and 
interesting peoples. 



8a THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

A policy of conciliation has made it easy for the 
Arab to become a Frenchman. No man of France 
ever forgets that the Arab is his inferior, but he acts 
as if he had forgotten it. There are no '' Jim Crow '' 
cars on any of the railroads and no reserved seats in 
the street-cars; on the other hand, I have frequently 
seen both Arabs and Europeans thrust into over- 
crowded compartments in order that the privacy of 
Arab women in an almost vacant compartment might 
be respected. The native is not elbowed aside at the 
ticket-seller's window, nor does he hop off the narrow 
sidewalk to let a white lady pass. He sits at will in 
the best cafes and in the dining-rooms of the best 
hotels, if he can pay the bill. But Arabs and French 
do not intermarry. 

That which surprised me more than anything else in 
North Africa was the French soldier's attitude toward 
the native. I have seen the man in uniform at all 
hours of the day and night, under all sorts of con- 
ditions, but I never heard him speak harshly to a native 
or act in a lordly, arrogant way. The zouaves off 
duty pass along the streets as quietly and inoffensively 
as if they were only visitors in the land that they 
have conquered; yet the average European all along 
the Moroccan coast will tell you that the French 
soldier is a ruffian who kills for pastime and spares not 
women and children. 

Here is an incident that shows the French policy: 
In the Arab quarter of a Tunisian city I stumbled into 
a street-fight. Three Arabs, apparently half-stupefied 
with hemp, were striking at each other like children 



THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 83 

and rolling about on the cobblestones. A big, good- 
natured Sudanese tried to stop the fight but he backed 
out of it when they began to tear his clothes. After 
about fifteen minutes, when the fighters had become a 
sorry-looking group, a French officer and two native 
police appeared. The reeling men revived sufficiently 
to begin afresh on the policemen. With a vivid recol- 
lection of New York, I stood expectantly, but the little 
Frenchman did not draw his club and put the fighters 
to sleep in " Metropolitan " style. He grasped the 
first by the arm, twisted it behind his back, and 
marched him down the street; once the prisoner de- 
cided to lie down in the street, but the officer got him 
on his feet again without striking him. The two native 
police, however, kicked their prisoners along in front 
of them. After seeing many instances of this kind 
and not one where a Frenchman in uniform handled a 
native roughly, one may be excused if he discredits 
the stories of French brutality that are peddled about 
by men who heard them from some one else who did 
not himself see them. 

It is undeniably true that the Arab of Algeria or 
Tunisia finds his prejudices respected. For this rea- 
son, the French Arab is and Vv^ill remain indefinitely 
a Mohammedan. It is in his moral responsibility 
toward the awakening race that the Frenchman falls 
most deplorably short. He does not reinforce the 
Arab with influences which will steady him as the 
power of his creed weakens. The Mohammedan 
doesn't drink, but he can learn; and his conscience 



84 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

soon permits him to drink anything that is not red. 
But gambhng is not forbidden by the Koran, and the 
roulette-table follows the French flag. 

Now when a free-and-easy morality is superimposed 
upon a Mohammedan foundation, the result is some- 
what in doubt. It has pleased some writers, with " the 
artistic temperament," to effervesce over the mystical 
beauties of Mohammedanism. Perhaps another writer 
may make the bald statement that all Arab Africa is 
morally " rotten " without being accused of exaggera- 
tion by men who know. The crumbling and dis- 
coloured minarets of the mosques that have not been 
repaired by the French themselves tell more plainly 
than words the real state of this people. Minarets and 
the whitewashed domes of saints' tombs are as common 
as church-spires in Brooklyn ; theoretically, every Arab 
and every Moor pray five times a day: but an Arab 
who is genuinely pious is as rare as a snowstorm. 

It is only in the externals of religion that this new 
French protege is a marvel of devotion, and no wor- 
shipper of any creed in the world can beat him at that. 
It was my good fortune to divide the month of Rama- 
dan between Algerian Arabs and Tangier Moors. 
Ramadan is the Lent of the whole Mohammedan 
world — a period of thirty days during which the faith- 
ful must not eat nor drink nor smoke between sun- 
rise and sunset. Thousands upon thousands of these 
people were under my eye from one new moon to 
another, but I saw only one violation of this law of 
the Koran, and that was the case of a mother who 



THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 85 

gave her baby a little crust of bread. All day long 
in the market-places they handled food and water, 
but never a crumb nor a drop passed their lips; the 
same loafers sat moodily on the benches of the coffee- 
houses, but the proprietors brewed nothing except for 
an occasional European. The extreme of loyalty to 
the letter of the law was shown in the case of patients 
in one of the charitable hospitals : the surgeon told me 
that he generally closed the institution during Rama- 
dan because none of the patients could be persuaded to 
take a drop of medicine until they heard the sunset 
gun. 

But not even the Koran can keep the Arab from 
bringing the sum-total of sensual enjoyment for the 
twenty-four hours up to the average. The moment the 
boom of the evening gun is heard he begins to gorge 
himself; and he gives the whole night to the task of 
preparing for the evil of the morrow. When the 
morning gun. announces the hour of fasting, he is ready 
to sleep; since he remains in a state of unconsciousness 
until along in the afternoon, there really remain only 
a few hours of abstinence before the beginning of 
another debauch. So universal is this custom that 
European residents dread the approach of Ramadan, 
because their native servants are thoroughly demoral- 
ized for a w^hole month. 

It is seldom that one sees a drunken Arab or Moor, 
but when it comes to vices which the Koran does not 
interdict, the Mohammedan's conscience betrays its 
elastic qualities. In every important Algerian town 



86 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

you may find the new type — the Frenchified Arab who 
has acquired a smattering of education and picked up 
all the European vices as a reinforcement to his own 
plentiful supply. The influence of this new type, par- 
ticularly upon boys, is very pernicious, yet he is the 
inevitable product of civilization. The Arab boys are 
going to school by the thousands, but all the training is 
directed mainly at their intellectual natures. This 
would not be deplorable were it not for the well- 
known fact that the average Arab boy, even as a 
child, is depraved almost beyond belief. So far as 
a traveller's limited observation goes, the French 
Arab who has merely become '' educated " cannot 
be considered much of an improvement upon the 
original. 

This is true, also, in regard to Arab honesty. I 
have heard more than one French trader say that he 
had much more confidence in the native of the interior 
than in the coast Arab. The truth of the whole matter 
is that the North African needs something more than 
civilization to make of him a white man — and he is not 
getting it. An Englishman who has lived among the 
Moors for thirty years, and is their warm friend, has 
made an analysis of the Moor's " bumps." Graded on 
the scale of lo, this is his summary : 



Courtesy 8 Self-esteem lo ^ 

General shrewdness 6 Loj^alty 2 

Hospitality 8 Commercial honesty . . i ^ 

Kindness to animals . . . o ^ Love of Cleanliness .... 3 

Love of pleasure lo Procrastination ii 

Courage 5 to 10 Truthfulness x 



THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 87 

This analysis fits the Arab as well as the Moor, and 
it shows that he needs something more than the veneer 
of civilization. 

I entered Africa with a well-defined conception of 
the Arab as a cruel, treacherous, fanatical, thoroughly 
despicable character. Daily contact with him under 
many kinds of circumstances, however, revealed inter- 
esting and admirable qualities. This is far from 
saying that any North African is a man to be 
idealized; but he is an individual with unlimited 
possibilities. 

He startles you, at first, by his personal appearance. 
His physical imperfections — and his sanitary sins, as 
well — are concealed by the robe that hangs loosely 
from his shoulders like a Roman toga or enshrouds 
him like the habit of a white-cowled monk; " it is as 
effectual a covering as charity." Generally tall and 
erect, especially in Tunisia, his carriage is superb and 
commanding; the bronzed features beneath his turban 
are usually stolid or stern, but not sinister; and his 
gutturals are much more pleasing to the ear than the 
chattering and cackling of some of his neighbours 
from the south of Europe. But if you strip from him 
the picturesque garb and put him in European clothes, 
most of his physical preeminence is gone; to American 
eyes, at least, he drops instantly to the level of an 
ordinary mulatto. 

This applies, also, with some exceptions, to the 
Arab in French uniform. The infantryman awakens 
no enthusiasm, but he likes his new clothes — and that 



88 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

is the main thing. He is more easily kept under con- 
trol than the average Negro soldier, but he does not 
look like a man who would back up against a wall and 
fight to the last cartridge. General d'Amade, who had 
both Algerian Arabs and black Senegalese under him 
at Casablanca, told me that he preferred the Algerians ; 
but this is partly because the Arab has been French 
long enough to acquire something of the language 
and manner of life. Just outside of the General's 
model camp were some of those black fighters from 
the Senegal ; their sloppy women were unclothed above 
the waist and many of the children were naked to 
their toe-nails; this sort of thing does not appeal to 
the French officer's aesthetic sense. 

Of the Arab cavalryman (the Spahi) no one can 
have anything but praise. Many are the devices of the 
white man when he goes a-civilizing — school-bells, 
church-bells, printer's ink, justices of the peace, black 
powder sandwiched between lead and brass shells — 
but if I were asked to guess the most effectual method 
of making Frenchmen out of Arabs, the answer would 
be the Spahi uniform. Solomon in his most radiant 
glory may have been a finer exhibit of jewelry and 
gorgeous silks, but it is doubtful whether he ever 
brightened the Palestinian landscape more pleasingly 
than this pride of French native soldiery adorns the 
hot Algerian plains. However frequently he may be 
seen, he never tires the eye. He is clad in a scarlet 
(or perhaps a blue) waistcoat covered with gold braid. 
Baggy trousers of a contrasting colour disappear into 
European riding-boots. His turban (always of white) 



THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 89 

is apparently stretched tightly over an inverted soup- 
plate and is held in place by about twenty yards of 
brown cord wound around the head as a hat-band. 
This is only his fatigue uniform; he wears on every 
possible occasion a military cloak that makes another 
vivid contrast, and throws back one corner to show 
the brilliant lining. Put this cavalryman, spurred and 
sabred, on a horse with '' go " in him, and there is 
no Arab spectator so sluggish as not to open his 
eyes. 

And it is this that counts. The French have made 
military service so attractive that the Arab is willing 
to forget his racial antipathy and take the oath of 
allegiance to the white man's colours. Once in camp, 
he begins to pick up the language of his French offi- 
cers; little by little he learns civilized ways — and 
likes them; and little by little the deadening, stupefying 
atmosphere of Islam vanishes. He may crawl out of 
his uniform when his enlistment expires, but it is for- 
ever impossible for him again to see life at the angle 
from which he once viewed it. 

The Arab is not a citizen of France, but the 
Algerian Jew is — and there's a rub, for the Arab has 
long been accustomed to the pleasing spectacle of see- 
ing the Jew kiss the Moslem toe. As I was leaving 
Algeria, news came that the French government had 
decided to require every Arab to pass through a term 
of service in the army. This may not be the best thing 
that ever happened to the French army but it will 
be a means of grace to the Arabs. If compulsory 



90 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELIVIET 

service shall result in universal citizenship (as it 
should), then the old rankle will disappear. The 
French listen with a more alert ear to the distant 
rumbling of colonies than do the English. They 
realize that any one of the usual mutterings that de- 
pendent races indulge in may prove to be the little 
puff of smoke that will precede the flash of a '' holy 
war " against the European — such as the Mahdist up- 
rising in the Sudan. This is the low-lying cloud on the 
southern horizon that the Governor-General in Algiers 
occasionally sees from his political observatory; and 
this is the spectre that now and then rises out of the 
wastes to confront the isolated colonist whose fields 
cover the valleys that the Arab wrongfully regards as 
rightfully his. Until the Mohammedan conception of 
the white man as an unbelieving dog has been removed, 
the Arab will not dismiss the anticipation of a day 
when Allah will give him the exquisite pleasure of 
kicking the dog back into the sea. 

But the Frenchman is apparently unconcerned and 
continues to replace battalions of French zouaves with 
the native soldiery. Even at Casablanca, I found 
Moors already in uniform — the beginning of the same 
policy in Morocco. It is evident that the Frenchman, 
who knows the Arab soldier better than any other 
European, pins his faith to him. The engineer goes 
ahead with his plans for railroads and highways; the 
well-digger's caravan moves on into the Sahara; the 
colonist continues to plant his olive-shrubs and vines 
for the future; and the schoolteacher goes on with 
the task of teaching a brown-skinned protege that the 



THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 91 

proper way for an Arab to pronounce " Ouach 
Kalekf '' is " Comment vous portez-vous? " 

Of the Arab woman few Westerners are competent 
to speak, but she is yet very far from being a French- 
woman. The curse of Islam rests heavily upon her. 
In addressing even a half-Europeanized Arab or 
Moor, it is still a breach of etiquette to inquire after 
the health of his wives or daughters. The girl's child- 
hood is spent in seclusion, with none of the outdoor 
pleasures and none of the school-life of Western 
children. Wedded (virtually sold) at an age when 
American girls are yet in short dresses, she merely 
passes from the seclusion of her own home to that of 
a man to whom she may never have spoken and who 
may have children old enough to be her father; and 
thenceforward her life is that of either a doll or a 
slave. Visits to the tombs of " holy " men (os- 
tensibly for prayer), a weekly trip to the public 
baths, and a Friday outing in the cemetery — these 
are the recreations of a Moorish or an Arab 
lady. 

Most of the native women that one sees along the 
Barbary Coast, therefore, belong to the peasant class, 
where the wife ranks with the burro as a beast of 
burden; and even these women are more or less veiled 
when in the towns. But a passing traveller may con- 
vince himself that many of the women have a complex- 
ion as fair as that of the women he knows at home, and 
that some are of extraordinary beauty. European 
ladies who have access to native homes generally admit 



92 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

that beauty is about all that the native women have, 
even those of the higher classes. 

To take this Mohammedan woman by the hand and 
lead her into the larger liberty of Europe is a task 
that none need envy the French Government. It will 
probably require several generations to produce an 
Arab womanhood that will be at all comparable to 
ours — and much of the raw material will be spoiled in 
the making. You may easily prove this in the public 
squares of Algiers in broad daylight. 

The children — both Arabs and Moors — are attrac- 
tive and lovable in spite of the sins of the fathers that 
have been visited upon them for many generations, 
plus the sins of their own. The Arab baby has a 
hard time of it, and the percentage that never emerges 
from babyhood is appallingly large. Of those that 
survive, many go through life deformed or with 
weakened powers, but they acquire a sort of Spartan 
fortitude that fits well into the fatalistic doctrines of 
their philosophy. 

For instance, turning my gaze toward a market- 
place as I write, I see a peasant woman with a six- 
months-old baby suspended from her back by a wide, 
dirty sash. Its tiny feet stick out in front, the little 
legs being arched around the mother's broad back 
until they are curved like a bow. The baby hangs in 
this improvised hammock with its head downward, 
the unprotected head and eyes exposed to the glaring 
sun. It is safe to assume that its scalp is covered with 
scabs and scars, and its festering eyes with flies. It 




THE LAND OF THE GOAT'S-HAIR TENTS 




THE WOMEN OF THE ItEDAWEEX TENTS 



THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 93 

will hang there for the greater part of the day, as the 
mother goes about her work, the child's angle at any 
given moment depending upon the mother's position. 
When the woman is ready to trudge toward her 
wretched hut, one or more blanket coverings will be 
thrown over her back (and over the baby) and it will 
breathe whatever air it can get. It hasn't much of a 
chance in life, but it is learning the lesson of uncom- 
plaining endurance of the many ills that Allah gets 
credit for sending. 

The children of the upper classes fare better, but 
only the boys receive special solicitude. So pleasing 
is the sight of a well-to-do native riding along with his 
little son perched up in front of him that one forgets 
that he has never seen a father of the upper class in 
public with a daughter. 

Naturally, this conception of a girl's place in the 
universe makes the educational problem hard. Most 
of these people cannot read in their own language, and 
they have no desire for what we consider good learn- 
ing. The French are placing schools within their 
reach, but most of them are Koranic schools with 
Arab teachers. The chief task at present is to pro- 
duce a class of French Arabs that can lift these schools 
to a higher level. Normal schools and colleges of 
several kinds exist in the larger cities for this pur- 
pose. There are also several thousand Arab boys 
under French instructors every year; many of them 
become clerks or occupy minor government posts; the 
larger number are content to take their education and 
use it in their former spheres of action. 



94 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 



They have a great chance, these thirty milHons of 
Arabs that are now bhnking at the Hght. Perhaps 
France might be more paternal, but the conquered 
race may thank the stars that its destiny rests in a 
hand that seldom wears the rough gauntlet. 




FRENCH SCHOOLS IN TUNISIA 



VI 
BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 

TO the north, a long, indented coast-line, against 
which the spray of the Mediterranean splashes 
in a playful mood and over which blow breezes 
that have been cooled in their journey across leagues 
of water. 

To the south, a long, indented " coast-line," upon 
which the sand-dust of the Sahara sifts in a suffo- 
cating mist and over which blow scorching blasts that 
have come across leagues of burning sand. 

On the west, an impassable barrier of Moroccan 
mountains, guarded by impassable Moroccan tribes- 
men as wild and rugged as their hills. 

On the east, Tripoli — a. festering sore that a long- 
suffering Providence has permitted to remain un- 
healed, lest we forget what all North Africa was be- 
fore the white man seized it. 

Within, hemmed in by these boundaries, lie Algeria 
and Tunisia — two of the three most picturesque lands 
that are within easy reach of the traveller and two of 
the least visited. Merely to travel through them is 
a delight within easy reach of thousands of Americans 
who fill their diaries with the commonplaces of 
Europe. 

95 



96 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELIVIET 

If by the favour of the gods a boat lands you in 
French North Africa, it will probably be at Algiers. 
From the deck the city reminds you of some Cali- 
fornian's description of Los Angeles, but when you 
come ashore you will find that " the white city " is 
not so white as the sunlight painted it. The Arab 
hovels on both sides of the narrow paths that lead up 
to the Kasbah on the hilltop have apparently not re- 
sponded to the transforming touch of the invading 
civilization; but, if you have ever travelled in a Mo- 
hammedan land before and learned how foul a Mus- 
sulman city may be when there is no department of 
sanitation, you will observe important changes that 
French occupation has brought. 

Algiers is the miost ambitious French city outside of 
the republic itself, and it tries to be as much like Paris 
as circumstances (including the Arabs) permit. Here 
in this African city you may be as comfortable as if 
you were at home — ^perhaps more so. 

All the guide-books will tell you much about Mus- 
tapha Superieur and other clusters of beautiful foreign 
villas, with magnificent driveways. Heed them not; 
you can see fine homes and boulevards at home. 

Linger, instead, in the lower city, where the human 
tide ebbs and flows along the Boulevard d'Alger or 
trickles down from the high hill on whose summit 
stand the crumbling walls of the Kasbah — the scene of 
many a revolting crime. 

Or, you may sit at an open-air cafe and sip any of 
the drinks of France, surrounded by the best tailoring 
and the choicest millinery of Paris. 



BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 91 

Or, you may easily spend a day in the French shops 
under the arcade, and in the Oriental bazaars whose 
wares are displayed in a riot of colour. 

Or, you may stroll about in Le Place de Gouverne- 
ment while the band is playing, and incidentally get 
a glimpse of most of the attractive women and of the 
handsome officers of Algiers. 

Or, of course, you can hire a guide to take you the 
round of the " sights," stuff your ears with rubbish, 
and lighten your pocketbook with ill-advised purchases. 

Or — but never mind! 

Southwestward, a distance of 350 miles, near the 
Moroccan frontier, is the port of Oran — the second 
city in French North Africa. Leaving Algiers, the 
train passes through " the granary of the Roman Em- 
pire." (There seem to have been as many granaries 
of the Roman Empire as there are landing-places of 
Columbus.) This time it is the plain of Mitidja — 
4,000 acres of fertile soil occupied by small colonists 
who do their own farming and by large planters who 
employ Arab labour. 

Thirty-five miles from Algiers is the attractive city 
of BHda, with 30,000 people; near El Afifroun, the 
Atlas range is pierced by a tunnel that seems to be a 
mile long — it must have been a triumph of engineering 
to put it through; St. Cyprien, an hour's ride farther 
on, presents the unique spectacle of an entire Arab 
village turned Catholic. On the whole, the journey to 
Oran becomes monotonous, for the most interesting 
regions are not on the main line. For instance, there 



98 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

is Teniet-el-Haad, with 6,000 acres of cedars, many 
of the trees being ten feet in diameter; and Ferme- 
Blanche, a httle to the northeast of Oran, a wine- 
making estabhshment whose vats have a capacity of 
more than 1,000,000 gallons. Mare-d'Eau, southeast 
of Oran, is the centre of a forest of wild olive that 
spreads over an area of 25,000 acres. 

Were it not for the importance of Algiers as the 
centre of government, it is probable that Oran would 
quickly outstrip it in importance. A glance at the 
shipping in its half -moon harbour — one of the most 
beautiful in Africa — and at the merchandise piled in 
shiploads on its capacious wharves, shows the amount 
of business that comes to it even now. Algiers on its 
busiest day does not seem so busy as Oran on a dull 
day; and the number of new houses under construc- 
tion shows that the rest of the city is keeping pace 
with the harbour. Its hotels, its department stores, its 
bazaars, its public buildings, its street-cars, and all the 
appurtenances that go to make up a modern city are 
just as impressive as those of the Algerian capital. 
Once it was a Spanish city, and you may still see the 
Castillian coat-of-arms over one of the city gates; the 
Spanish tongue vies with French as the language of 
commerce; and in general the tincture of the Spaniard 
seems to act as a tonic upon the French resident. 
Furthermore, if it may be said without discourtesy, 
you may see more attractive women in an hour in the 
Spanish city of Oran than in an entire circuit of the 
other cities of French Africa. 

Only in one respect did I note evidence of com- 



BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 99 

mercial decay: The grand mosque of Oran was built 
with money that came from the sale of white men as 
slaves, but I saw none then being haggled over in 
the open market. Commerce of this kind seems to 
have suffered a depression since the arrival of the 
French. 

Travellers who go to Oran should be careful to 
have all kinds of money in their pockets. It is the 
only place where my Bank of England notes were 
turned down. In order to buy a steamship ticket from 
an Italian-Spanish company, it was necessary to dis- 
count my English money at a French bank; the steam- 
ship agent accepted this and gave me French and 
Spanish in change; but when I boarded his steamer I 
made the discovery that it was against the rules for 
the steward to accept anything but Italian money in 
payment for meals ! 

^ ^ :?? ^ jjs 

The trains that run from Algiers eastward are the 
best that French North Africa can offer, for the main 
line as far as Constantine is a part of the tourist trail 
to Biskra. The tourist was not abroad in the land 
when I travelled over it; even had it been the open 
season, however, I should have missed him, for the 
sightseer (poor as well as rich) has the foolish habit 
of riding first-class. But whenever I alighted in a city 
which Baedeker has made famous and saw the horde 
of unemployed guides bearing down upon me, I re- 
gretted that I was not journeying in the wake of a 
large party. 

A casual glance at the map may leave you under 



100 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

the impression that you may breakfast in Oran, lunch 
in Algiers, sup in Constantine, and sleep in Tunis. As 
a matter of fact, it is a day's ride to Algiers, another 
to Constantine, and a third to Tunis — that is, if you 
travel only when you can see things. 

During the first hours of the ride from Algiers you 
pass from the environs of a miniature Paris into the 
vineyards of France and thence into the wilds of 
Kabylia. Like their Touareg cousins in the southern 
Sahara, the Kabyles are men of war; they fought so 
well that the French have erected a monument to one 
of their leaders as a tribute of admiration for a foe. 
They are also farmers and craftsmen as well as fight- 
ers; unlike the Arabs, they prefer stone cabins to tents, 
and their villages are perched upon the mountain-tops 
instead of in the plains. Moreover, their women go 
unveiled. 

If you have never before given thought to the genius 
of the French engineer, you will have respect for it 
by the time you leave the foothills of Kabylia behind. 
This railroad is one of his triumphs, and the military 
road that he cut through the mountain fastnesses is 
another. It may be that there is a European who sur- 
passes the Frenchman as a builder in Africa but I have 
yet to be convinced. He has this also to his credit — 
he builds with his own money, trusting to the future 
for reimbursement, and does not squeeze it out of the 
colonies. 

From the foothills of the Rockies your train drops 
down into the Western plains, and then into a region 



BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 101 

that is a vivid reminder of the upland South; but 
here the hills are either bare or covered with stunted 
vegetation. Were it not for the costumes of the Arabs 
at the stations, there would be little in the journey 
across Algeria to remind the traveller that he is in 
Africa. The stately palms that one expects in a half- 
Oriental land are found only in the public gardens; 
the groves of olive look exactly like apple-orchards; 
the small native villages differ but little from groups 
of weather-beaten straw-stacks on an American farm; 
and the camel is rarely seen. The Arab (or somebody 
else) has long since since destroyed all the forests 
and left the slopes to the ravages of the torrents. 
Whenever you see a clump of flourishing trees on the 
horizon, you know that it marks either a railroad sta- 
tion or a Frenchman's home. I do not recall a station 
in French North Africa that did not have its grove of 
eucalyptus — the beginning of re-forestation. As a 
rule, you are looking out upon a half-cultivated plain 
bordered on either side by the bleak Algerian hills. It 
is a monotonous landscape and the arrival at Con- 
stantine is a great relief. 

Constantine is one of the " sights " of North Af- 
rica, and European visitors drop many exclamation 
points into its famous " gorge." The city is built 
upon a rock that reminds one of the river- front at 
Quebec. It is entirely surrounded by a caiion that is 
from 500 to 1,000 feet deep, and the bridge that 
spans it is the only connection with the plateau. 

This is historic soil. Here it was that " the Jugur- 



102 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

thine War " was fought; and Sallust, its historian, was 
the Roman governor of Constantine. It has since 
been the scene of many a hard fight that had no Sal- 
lust to record it, but the city has never been taken 
except by siege or strategy. The books say that it is 
impregnable, but it doesn't look it. With all due 
credit to the excellent troops that now garrison it, I 
should guess that its capture would require an hour's 
hard work on the part of two such regiments as the 
Sixth United States Infantry or the Scots Guards, 
preceded by an overture from a good battery. 

My friend Saadi was much grieved at my indif- 
ference to the gorge of Constantine. He insisted that 
life would never be quite the same afterward unless 
I went down to explore it with him (fee, two francs), 
but I cheerfully proposed to take his word for all the 
wonders that it contains. I patiently allowed him to 
tell me what this and that European had said about 
it, and then I reversed the megaphone and filled his 
ears with big facts about American gorges. Standing 
on the brink of the chasm, I tried to explain how the 
Grand Canon of the Colorado would look beside it. 

Saadi respectfully refrained from any reply, but 
there was a reproachful look in his eye that seemed 
to say, " What a shame that you should try thus to 
deceive one so young! " 

You may continue your railroad journey from Con- 
stantine in either of several directions. You may go 
southward to Batna (near which are magnificent Ro- 
man ruins) and on to the oasis city of Biskra. Or you 



BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 103 

may travel northward to the Httle port of Phil- 
ippeville on the Mediterranean. Or you may go 
eastward to Duvivier and branch northward through 
a fertile valley to Bone on the Mediterranean; 
here it was, in that long ago when this was a Chris- 
tian land, that St. Augustine preached and wrote his 
'' City of God." You will pass, on the mountains of 
Beni-Salah, 60,000 acres of good forest — a rare sight 
in Algeria. Or you may go eastward on the main- 
line and continue the journey across French North 
Africa. 

Eastward from Constantine on the main-line, your 
eye looks out upon the same monotonous plains and 
bare hills until you reach Duvivier; then, as you ap- 
proach the Tunisian frontier, you are again in well- 
forested hills that recall Kabylia. On reaching 
Ghardimaou, on the boundary-line, you are surprised 
by a French customs officer — though you are merely 
passing from one French colony into another. All 
your baggage must be lifted from the train and car- 
ried inside for inspection — but with the utmost 
courtesy. 

Leaving the rugged frontier that separates Algeria 
and Tunisia, you have a stretch of 115 miles to the 
city of Tunis. For a time the stations are far apart, 
but the eye is gladdened by the sight of acres of fer- 
tile soil being turned up with big gang-ploughs. Here, 
the plough is being drawn by six mules; farther on, 
it has ten or twelve oxen; now and then you see a 
horse hitched in front of the oxen to quicken the pace 
— some white man's idea, of course. 



104 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

The stations are closer together now and a new ob- 
ject begins to appear — the steel windmill from Chi- 
cago, of which more than 400 were sold by one firm 
in Tunis. You may also see the stately ruins of the 
Roman aqueduct that once brought the pure water of 
Zaghouan across a distance of thirty or forty miles 
to Carthage — centuries before Chicago or its windmill 
was dreamed of. 

The last lap of the journey is through a vast fer- 
tile plain that lies between distant hills and now you 
are in the midst of beautiful villas and Arab palaces — 
the environs of Tunis, the most Oriental city west of 
Cairo. 

^ :Jc :js sf: :Js 

Go and sit for an hour, if you please, beside any of 
the world's famous thoroughfares and cross-roads — 
Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Bois de Bologne in 
Paris, Charing Cross in London, the Corso Umberto 
in Rome, Broadway or Fifth Avenue in New York. 
Then come with me to Tunis and sip your coffee or 
vermouth in a cafe on the broad sidewalk just outside 
the Porte de France — you will see more that is strange 
and fascinating in five minutes than in your hour of 
civilized vaudeville. 

This Gate of France is not simply a hole cut in the 
wall of the ancient Arab city for the convenience of 
traffic. From the Arab side, it is the proscenium 
arch beyond which the drop-curtain has been raised 
to reveal a new and strange civilization; it is the 
telescopic lens through which an isolated race catches 
the blurred but alluring glimpse of a horizon of which 



BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 105 

it never dreamed; it is the portal through which the 
follower of the Prophet may not pass and then re- 
pass without a sense of discontent with the old order 
of things. 

From the cafe side, the open space in front of the 
arched gateway is the stage of a comic opera (if you 
be frivolous) or of an Oriental drama (if you be 
serious-minded), with an ever-changing cast of char- 
acters. Here they come, at all hours of the day — the 
bowed form of the vender with his goatskin of oil 
or his basket of fish; the merchant prince in his spot- 
less burnouse; the Arab dandy in his a la mode, tailor- 
made suit and red fez; the tangled-bearded Jewish 
patriarch ; the Arab woman with her black-veiled face ; 
the unveiled Jewess with her Turkish bloomers and 
dunce-cap head-dress; and the nondescript children of 
Arab and Italian and Maltese and Jewish and what- 
not households. 

And there they go — the French officer, the British 
consul, the German baker, the Italian grocer, the Span- 
ish wine-merchant, the American missionary, the 
Greek labourer, the East Indian vender, and an end- 
less chain of dwellers out of almost every land be- 
neath the sun. 

There are many things to be seen in Tunis — you 
will find them all noted down in the *' Book Appointed 
to be Read by Tourists " — but the life that surges up 
and down the streets of the Arab town and of the 
market-places and of the European quarter is more 
fascinating than them all. Here for instance, is one 
entry in my notebook: 



106 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

" To-day, in the market-place, I mingled with a thousand 
wrangling Arabs — countrymen and townsmen, wholesalers and 
retailers, Arabs with turbans and Arabs with fezzes, with now 
and then a pot-black Sudanese — sellers of everything that is pro- 
duced under this blazing sky. Every turn of the kaleidoscope 
brought fresh types of faces, but apart from them all stood out 
the face of a child of the desert, a little statue in bronze. He 
watched by the donkey while his father — a gaunt Arab in a 
soiled burnouse — sold out the remnant of the produce that they 
had brought in before the dawn. 

" This little lad, with his face of tan and wonderful eyes, 
had in him the fierce impetuosity of his race — I saw it flare up 
once when another boy crowded him — but he impressed me as 
one of the type that is the hope of Arab Africa. France is giv- 
ing him a chance ; he has a vision of which his grandfather had 
never a glimpse. Mohammedan he was born and Mussulman he 
will die, but he will not belong to the listless and stagnant past. 
He is a little Frenchman now." 



Tunis is preeminently a city that now is, but, if you 
feel creeping over you the awakening desire to step 
back into the ages that used to be, you may take the 
electric train for the crumbling ruins that once were 
Carthage. 

After a ride of twenty minutes you see a barren 
and dusty hillside baking in the hot African sun; its 
crest is crowned by a magnificent cathedral, a tomb, 
a hotel, an American windmill, and a few other houses, 
with the seminary of the White Fathers nearby. There 
are no stately ruins nor crumbling arches to remind 
you that you are at the most historic spot west of 
Egypt. 

So repeatedly and so completely was Carthage hum- 
bled that the visitor who strolls about over the hill 



BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 107 

stumbles upon the remains of its glory before he is 
aware. Here, broken cisterns studded with snail- 
shells yawn at you with parched and dusty throats; 
over there are the remains of a splendid villa, the 
designs of the mosaic pavement yet almost perfect. 
Yonder, approached by a road that is lined with 
broken columns of marble, on which the lizards are 
sunning themselves, is the amphitheatre which was 
once the gathering-place of the thousands whose very 
memories have been obliterated. 

The world w^as comparatively young when the first 
stone foundations were laid on this hillside. Phoeni- 
cian navigators from Tyre and Sidon came into the 
quiet waters of this little bay nearly nine hundred 
years before the Christian era and built a city whose 
population eventually passed the million mark. They 
built also a great harbour, with docks for two hun- 
dred sail, and here lay " the ships of Tarshish," that 
were once the talk of that little world. 

It was about this time that the fame of the man 
who will forever be associated with Carthage began 
to shine. Hannibal, a young Carthaginian of twenty- 
six, had led an army across the Alps and caused a 
panic along the Tiber. Then Rome turned the tables 
and sent its galleys into these beautiful waters. Han- 
nibal hastened back to make his greatest fight. Scipio 
won, and Carthage passed under the Roman eagles. 
Hannibal became an exile and finally took poison 
rather than become an exhibit at Rome. No mar- 
ble shaft to his memory points its needle skyward 
here on this Tunisian hill; Hannibal is one of the 



108 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

few African names that outlast even the best of 
marble. 

The fate of Hannibal was also the fate of the city 
whose battles he fought. The grim Romans brought 
together all the ships that bore the Carthaginian em- 
blem — five hundred of them — and made the most spec- 
tacular bonfire that ever happened on the North Afri- 
can coast. Then Senator Cato began to fill Rome's 
Congressional Record with '' Carthago delenda est " 
("Carthage must be destroyed"). Rome caught up 
the cry and notified the African city to get off the 
map. 

Though Rome had burned its navy and taken away 
its weapons, there was fight still left in the Phoenician 
city. For two years it held the Roman legions off, 
but another Scipio came — Scipio Africanus. For sev- 
enteen days the flames of Carthage were reflected in 
the waters where its ships had perished, and 50,000 
Carthaginians were sold into slavery. Then the re- 
lentless Scipio completed his work by ploughing 
up the site and sowing it with salt. That is the 
reason you see no magnificent Phoenician ruins to- 
day. 

Thirty years later, Julius Caesar sent over a colony 
to begin a new city. Caesar Augustus also approved 
the idea and '' boomed " Carthage like a suburban real- 
estate man. It grew and grew until it became the most 
important city in North Africa. Then the Vandals 
rolled in like a tidal-wave; finally, in 698, the Saracens 
swarmed down upon it and destroyed Carthage almost 
as completely as Scipio had done. Ten centuries passed 



BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 109 

before this historic soil appeared in human history as 
the Turkish city of Tunis. 

During these centuries two other great names have 
been linked with the hill of Carthage. Saint Louis 
of France, the greatest of the Crusaders, died here of 
a pestilence — and that is why the stately church on 
Carthage hill, erected by Cardinal Lavigerie, is called 
the Cathedral of St. Louis. And when the great Car- 
dinal went to his last sleep, they brought his remains 
to Carthage and buried him on the site of so many 
ruined hopes. The curse of Cato — " Carthago delenda 
est '' — ^has been executed so vindictively that the deso- 
lation of the hillside to-day would gladden his spirit. 

Go you east or west or south from Tunis, or back 
to the land whence you came; sojourn in whatever 
strange and interesting places you may find; in mem- 
ory you will find yourself returning again and again 
to the city that overlooks the hill and the bay where 
Hannibal and Scipio fought it out. 

Just as variegated Tunis surpasses " the white city " 
of Algiers in quaintness and Oriental chanii, so does 
the land of Tunis surpass the older colony of Algeria. 
In the afternoon during which I first rode across it, 
there was never a moment when the eye wearied. 
Though I sat on a hard bench in a third-class com- 
partment, that short trip remains in memory as the 
most enjoyable railroad journey that I had in Africa. 

You will smile at the coaches of the narrow-gauge 
railroad — little boxes perched upon high wheels — you 
who expected to find a Limited Express. But this is 



110 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Africa, remember, and coaches that are good enough 
for southern Europe are considered good enough for 
Tunisia. Each coach is partitioned crosswise into four 
or five compartments, with doors on either side; you 
step inside, as though into a hack; and, if the traffic 
happens to be hvely, nine other passengers (with bun- 
dles of many shapes and sizes) squeeze in after you. 

When all is ready, the station-master trills a police- 
man's whistle; the conductor then blows a hoarse 
bazoo; the engineer answers with the locomotive's 
whistle — and you are off. It takes six hours to roll 
over the ninety miles to Sousse, but the panorama 
makes the traveller forget all of the railroad's 
deficiencies. 

First, we pass through a zone of suburbanites and 
gentleman- farmers — holders of commutation tickets. 
The little white-washed domes scattered here and there 
on their estates are the tombs of holy men — the Arab's 
village churches. (France is responsible for the white- 
wash.) Six miles out is a carefully pruned vineyard 
of 250 acres, looking most like a Southern cotton-field 
in August. At the fifteenth mile-post is a French 
plantation of 7,000 acres; here you enter a zone where 
the suburban villas are replaced by the neat homes of 
French colonists, and it is pleasant to read, as they 
flash by, the word '' Chicago " on most of the steel 
windmills that make their vineyards productive. 

At Enfidaville, some sixty miles from Tunis, is a fine 
example of syndicate farming — 300,000 acres bought 
by a French company from an ex-minister of the 
Bey. On this one estate have been uncovered the ruins 




IN THE HARBOUR OF SOUSSE, TUNISIA 




THE ARAB OUARTER I'.EVOND THE WALL 



BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 111 

of seventeen Roman cities that apparently averaged 
10,000 inhabitants each. This fact goes far to cor- 
roborate the reckless old Roman who wrote that one 
could pass from Sousse to Tunis (ninety miles) in 
the shade of villas and gardens. But you cannot make 
that journey bareheaded to-day; Chicago has not ex- 
ported enough windmills. 

As the afternoon glides behind you, a zone of waste 
land stretches out toward the horizon of your window- 
pictures. The homes of colonists now give way to 
flocks of sheep and goats, watched over by unkempt 
children of the wild, whose goat-hair tent probably 
sheltered their grandfather in his infancy. 

With alternating views of the valleys of southern 
California and the plains of New Mexico, the little 
narrow-gauge approaches the eastern coast. Then the 
curtain of darkness drops over your window and you 
see nothing more until the electric lights of Sousse 
flash up. 

Sousse, also, is an ancient city; much of the wheat 
that once fed Rome was shipped from this port. Now 
it is European (French and Italian), with the steam- 
ships of three regular lines in its fine harbour and 
with sailing craft of diverse wings. Here, again, you 
behold the artistic handiwork of France — streets wide 
and clean, beautiful shade-trees, a plaza of ornamental 
shrubbery, handsome public buildings, and imposing 
business houses. The era of the trolley-car has not 
yet dawned upon Sousse, but it can at least boast of 
a transportation novelty — a. horse-car that runs with- 



112 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

out a track! Here, also, the conveniences and com- 
forts of civilization await you in the hotels and cafes; 
" Bar de la Poste " is one of the most conspicuous 
signs in the city. 

But through the arched gateway that pierces the 
old wall of Sousse you ciatch a glimpse of a different 
picture. There, in a heterogeneous mass, the Arabs 
and the Sicilians and the African Jews herd in 
wretched hovels, at whose threshold the sanitary squad 
of the municipality halts in despair. 

Seventy-five miles south of Sousse is the ancient 
port of Sfax, with sponge fisheries on one side and an 
olive-belt extending for forty miles on the other. The 
journey from Sousse may be made in a public automo- 
bile, there being no weighty reason for connecting the 
two ports by rails. 

At Sfax, however, you meet the locomotive again, 
for the white man has a road of steel extending west- 
ward for 1 20 miles to Gafsa — an oasis with 10,000 
date-palms — and thence for twenty miles to the phos- 
phate mines to which the railroad owes its presence 
in the land. 

From Gafsa, if the call of the south be strong, you 
may mount your growling camel and follow the cara- 
van trail across fifty miles of desert to Tozeur, an 
oasis of 2,500 acres. But there are no ice-cream par- 
lours along the way. 



VII 
IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 

WHATEVER the map-maker may say, nearly 
everything in Tunisia south of Sousse (ex- 
cept a few Httle port-towns on the Mediter- 
ranean) is essentially part of the great desert whose 
sand-surf parches its vegetation. Yet the optimistic 
Frenchman ignores this geographical reality in his de- 
termination to include the arid plains within his recla- 
mation area. 

Blistering hot was the Tunisian sun when I made 
my pilgrimage from Sousse to the city of " Kairouan 
the Holy/' a journey that many a devout Moslem has 
made a- foot and a-camel in the years that are gone. 
After passing through ten miles of olive-trees, the 
little engine began to puff and pant with the exertion 
of pulling our few small coaches over a parched and 
dusty plain that would make any man from western 
Kansas feel at home. The good-natured guard allowed 
me to stand upon the platform all the way, and the 
rusty Arab in the compartment that I vacated gave 
brief thanks to Allah and stretched himself out at 
full length to sleep. 

There may be seasons when southern Tunisia is a 
field of green, but it was a scene of desolation when 

113 



114 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

I saw it. There was not a tree nor a bush except those 
that had been artificially planted; the vegetation was 
limited mainly to scattered tufts of desert grass; in 
none of the water-courses was there a drop of moisture 
for the flocks of lean goats and the gaunt camels that 
were munching cactus and sun-baked twigs. The 
sizzling rails of the track, the lonely but artistic sta- 
tions, and the yet more lonely home of a colonist here 
and there were the only evidences of civilization. The 
black tents of none-too-prosperous Bedouin, with don- 
keys and camels standing motionless in the full glare 
of the afternoon sun, reminded me of the distance that 
intei*vened between me and Broadway. 

Toward the end of the journey we came upon acres 
and acres of thickly growing "prickly-pear" cactus, 
cultivated as a Kansan grows alfalfa. This is camel- 
food; the burden-bearers of the desert country chew 
it up like a cow munching an ear of green corn; the 
" stickers " that torture the hand of man seem to have 
no effect upon the mucous membrane (or is it sole- 
leather) of the camel's alimentary tract. Then came 
a moist marsh, with an immense herd of camels graz- 
ing upon the green meadow, and beyond them rose 
the lofty minaret of the Grand Mosque; at a distance 
it looks not unlike the Metropolitan Tower of New 
York. 

The pilgrimage was ended. I was in the far-famed 
and holy city of Kairouan, founded in 671 a.d. by 
Sidi-Okba, the Mohammedan conqueror to whose 
eternal credit (or infamy) the Arab owes his pres- 



IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 115 

ence in all North Africa. He it is who sleeps near 
Biskra in the little oasis that bears his name. Upon 
his tomb, in quaint Arabic characters, you may read 
the epitaph, " May God have mercy upon him! " He 
certainly needs it. But his chief memorial is this great 
mosque within the gates of Kairouan; outside the city, 
in a mosque yet more artistic, sleeps one who was a 
companion of Mohammed himself. So we are now 
treading upon holy ground. Curiously enough, the 
mosques in this desert Mecca (once the holiest in all 
Africa) are the only mosques in Tunisia which the 
French Government allows the foreigner to enter. 

I entered, and found myself in an open court that 
would accommodate thousands of the Faithful. The 
fount of ablution in the centre was dry, but my eye 
lit upon its substitute — the familiar, square tin that 
had once contained Standard Oil ! A portrait of Mr. 
Rockefeller himself would not have been more sur- 
prising. Mohammed (not the Prophet, but one of the 
milHons that bear his name) led me also into the sanc- 
tuary. At the portal I prepared to remove my shoes, 
but the attendant showed me a trick worth several of 
that. On the stone floor were long strips of matting; 
taking up one end of a strip, he pulled it over and 
laid it on the other end. My sacrilegious soles then 
touched the unsanctified stones for half the length 
of a strip, and the under-side of the matting for the 
other half. As a matter of fact, the under-side of the 
matting was cleaner than the holy side. Then we 
climbed the long, winding stairway that leads to the 
top of the minaret, a trail whose stones are worn with 



116 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

the footsteps of the muezzins who have cHmbed it daily 
throughout these hundreds of years. From the top 
Mohammed pointed out the other mosques whither he 
would lead me — saying nothing about the two francs 
which he would share with the custodian of each. He 
also led me to the well that is said to have subter- 
ranean connection with Mecca. Proof : A pilgrim 
dropped his cup in the well at Mecca and found it in 
the Kairouan well when he returned ! 

In the gathering twilight, with my zeal for mosques 
quite abated, he led me unexpectedly into the most 
uncanny place that I saw in North Africa. It was an 
unpretentious place of prayer and in the centre of the 
enclosure sat a double row of wild-looking men. They 
were beating upon curious drums and each worshipper 
was chanting fiercely at his vis-a-vis, their voices ris- 
ing at times into what sounded like furious maledic- 
tions. A priest-like grey-beard in white urged them 
on. Wilder and wilder grew the chanting, and the 
scene was suggestive of a mad-house. Sitting there 
in the dusk, the only dog of an unbeliever present in 
the sanctuary, I observed with satisfaction that Mo- 
hammed viewed the turmoil without apprehension. I 
cannot say that I did. 

Then things began to happen. Several of the 
chanters sprang to their feet, threw off every garment 
except their trousers, and loosed their long, black hair 
so that it fell upon their shoulders. The din of the 
tom-toms and of the shouting was now almost deafen- 
ing, and the fanatics responded to it with contortion- 



IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 117 

ate dancing that made the perspiration stream down 
their half-naked bodies. 

A cold chill ran up and down my spine when I saw 
the " priest " hand out to each what looked like ice- 
picks a foot and a half long. These they slowly 
inserted into their flesh — one through his cheeks, an- 
other through his hand, another into his naked abdo- 
men — dancing all the while. One boy of ten, with 
long hair like the men, thrust two picks through the 
skin that covers the collar-bone. As he jumped about 
the court, the heavy end of the picks bobbed up and 
down and utterly mystified me — for I had made up my 
mind that the instruments were made in two pieces, 
like the trick daggers of the mountebanks. 

When the dancers were exhausted to the point of 
dropping, the old man began to remove the ice-picks. 
He withdrew each slowly and held a cloth for a few 
moments over each wound. When he removed it I 
saw no wound nor any trace of blood. 

Every moment during the performance I was look- 
ing for evidence of trickery — and the dancers were 
cavorting all about me. Finally the " priest " came 
to the man with the pick through his cheeks. There 
it hung, the knob protruding from the left cheek, the 
point of the blade extending four or five inches from 
the right. They were not more than a yard from 
me. The old man seized the knob and slowly pulled 
out the blade — exactly as one would draw an ice-pick 
out of a melon. Then without any other movement, 
he handed it directly to me. I examined it closely — 
but the mystery was deeper than ever. 



118 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

I have heard it explained in various ways by men 
who never witnessed it, but the theories are not satis- 
fying. Nor do they explain other weird acts of these 
same men (the sect of the Aissaweyas), such as eating 
broken glass, scourging one another with big branches 
of prickly pear, and so on. 

Mohammed and I slipped out into the dark street 
and walked silently away. 

" Mohammed," I asked, " why was there no 
blood?" 

" Oh, monsieur/' he answered, as one would reply 
to the foolish question of a child, ** they are holy 



It seemed a long way from the world, there in 
that ancient city on the fringe of the Desert. Yet 
there, sitting down to a course-dinner in a French 
hotel on a Friday, I was handed a copy of Monday's 
London Times. 

Afterward I sat in a cafe chantant and listened to 
comic-opera singers from Paris. But civilization ends 
at railhead there in the hot sand. 



I have read it in a book that you will find nothing 
in Biskra that you will not find better elsewhere. Per- 
haps; but I would that the writer had given the name 
of a city where one may find more that is strange 
and romantic and Oriental assembled in one fascinat- 
ing melange. Nowhere else in my notebook do I find 
such entries as this ; 



IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 119 

" It is night in a desert city. The time is six centuries ago, 
and I am a milUon miles from my little world. The month is 
October, but that matters little in this zone of perpetual sunshine. 

" Here, in the Hotel du Sahara, a taciturn Arab has just 
served me with a French course-dinner, with wine squeezed out 
of the Algerian grape whose juice is the rich red of its pedi- 
greed ancestor uprooted in France — the only land that seems to 
be in the same hemisphere. 

" Standing on the balcony, I sniff the heavily scented at- 
mosphere that is laden with the pungent perfume of the sandal- 
wood furniture of my room. But the chief impressions of the 
hour are those that come through the sense of hearing. 

" From somewhere in the distance comes the chiming of 
Christian bells from a chapel of the White Fathers. 

" From the barracks comes the martial music of the drum- 
and-trumpet corps of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. 

" It is followed by the wild bagpipe strains that are dear to 
the heart of the Arab tirailleurs. 

" From the Rue des Ouled-Na'ils come the quivering notes 
from the puffed cheeks of the big black Sudanese who pipes for 
the dancing-girls. 

" In the street nearby, the newsboy toots the horn that ad- 
vertises La Depeche Algerienne, and Le Matin. 

" From the corner rises the doleful chant of a sightless beggar 
who pleads for alms in the name of his patron saint. 

" His quavering voice is answered by a weary camel who 
growls and squeals like a stuck pig as his master bids him kneel 
and be unloaded. 

" Up from the street rises incessantly the ' slip-slap ' of flap- 
ping sandals on Arab feet. 

" Overhead is the gentle ' swish ' of the date-palms whose 
branches kiss one another in the evening breeze. 

"Underneath is the gurgle and splash of the life-giving rivu- 
lets that trickle along the irrigation ditches that wind in and out 
among the palms. 

" How easy it would be to become a Moslem were it not for 
to-morrow's sense of sight — and of smell ! " 

The Ouled-Nail is an Algerian institution that has 
its counterpart in every civiHzed and semi-civilized 



120 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

land beneath the sun — in every age that has thus far 
been recorded in the log-book of human history, and 
in all the ages that are yet unborn. In Japan " it " is 
the geisha; in India "it" is the nautch; in Persia 
" it " is the houri; in the Pacific islands '* it " is 
the hula; in Paris, London, and New York " it " 
is the chorus lady; in Algeria ''it" is the Ouled- 
Nail. 

She comes from an oasis far down in the Algerian 
Sahara, from a tribe whose daughters are dedicated 
to the profession of amusing men, just as deliberately 
as the sons of Levi were set apart for the service of 
tabernacle and temple. As a little tot she is trained 
to wriggle her body, just as children are trained to be 
contortionists and toe-dancers. There is nothing that 
can come into the life of a professional Arab dancer 
that she does not know, for her mother and her grand- 
mother have passed through every phase of it and all 
the family traditions centre in the smoky dance-halls 
of Algerian cities. 

In the flush of her young maidenhood, with the 
tribal O.K. upon her, she climbs into the litter that is 
strapped across the back of a kneeling camel and starts 
on her career of conquest — like the Vassar graduate 
with her diploma. For several years she will be " on 
the road," staying for weeks or months in this or 
that city, until she has perhaps covered Algeria from 
Ouargla to Oran. The coins of silver that her ad- 
mirers have moistened and stuck on her forehead have 
been transformed from time to time into coins of gold 
and strung together as necklaces and pendants. She 



IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 121 

exercises all the wiles of her sex in adding to her col- 
lection, for her social status in the tribe of the Ouled- 
Na'ils depends upon the size of her coin-collection. The 
more wanton she has been in the cities of the north, 
the more likely she is to shine in the oasis of the south 
when she returns. 

For the Ouled-Nail, unlike her sisters in the pro- 
fession elsewhere in the world, returns to the parental 
tent, spends her golden age in jingling her coins in 
the ears of her neighbours and in telling the endless 
story of her amours — and then settles down to a cir- 
cumspect married life and to the rearing of another 
generation of Ouled-Na'ils. 

The Creole type of New Orleans is probably near- 
est to the desert dancer in sensuous charm — for the 
Ouled-Nail is a fascinating barbarian, with the olive- 
tint on her finely moulded features and the wild light 
in her dark eyes. Architecturally, she often becomes 
too stout and " dumpy " to please the aesthetic taste of 
the Westerner, but the Arab's preference seems to in- 
cHne in that direction. Yet there is infinite variety; 
many of them are lithe and graceful in every pose 
and movement. I have seen hundreds of Jewish and 
Italian girls in New York who could easily pass as 
Ouled-Nails if they should wear the costume and prac- 
tise *' the step " of the dance. 

In your wildest dreams, perhaps — you who have 
been attracted by the piercing strains of the " music " 
that accompanied the Oriental dance in " the streets of 
Cairo " — you have yearned for a glimpse of the dance 



122 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

in its own home. Then come with me down the Rue 
des Ouled-Ndils. 

A small, dimly lighted room whose atmosphere is 
heavy with cigarette smoke; dingy walls decorated 
only with some lithographed advertisements; a dirty 
floor (of clay, perhaps) ; rough benches carelessly dis- 
arranged around the room; a small, raised platform 
at one side — ^that is a typical dance-hall. On the 
benches and floor sit or squat a score or two-score of 
noisy Arabs — all ages from the urchin up to grandpa, 
and all types from the girlish- faced dandy to the 
swarthy Bedouin. But they are always sober, for this 
is a Mohammedan land. 

On the raised platform you see the '' orchestra " — 
perhaps four men with instruments of torture. Sit- 
ting against the wall, smiling at or perhaps " jolly- 
ing " their admirers in the audience, are the Ouled- 
Nails, clad in their gayest raiment — but more nearly 
clad than the average dancer on a civilized stage. 
Every movement of their head makes their pen- 
dants and necklaces of coins jingle like bells on 
a dancer's toes. The general effect is decidedly 
exotic. 

The stage manager has evidently given a signal, for 
the musicians begin to unlimber. A sallow-faced 
youth picks up what looks like a large, brass vase, 
beautifully chased; he lays it across his lap and thumps 
the skin that is drawn tightly across the bottom. 
Number Two, a sour- faced Arab with a tangled beard, 
bumps an instrument that looks as if it had started 
out to become a snare-drum and then decided to be 




WIND-JAMMER WITH WORKS LIKE A BAZOO 



IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 123 

a tambourine. Number Three is a dandified chap with 
a long, flute-like reed that emits soft, plaintive notes. 
But the star performer is a pot-black Sudanese with 
a wind-jammer shaped like a trumpet, but with works 
like a bazoo. 

After Number One had succeeded in getting the 
range, all went into action together. If you can imag- 
ine the strains of an infant bagpipe, plus the tremulous 
notes of a screech-owl, plus the yowl of an amorous cat, 
plus the tom-tom of a red Indian war-dance, plus the 
rasp of a rusty saw passing through a pine-knot — then 
you have a fair conception of Oriental dance-music. I 
confess that I like it, and that I would go farther to hear 
it again than to hear grand opera; but this preference 
may be due to the fact that nature has given me an 
ear-drum that can strain pleasurable thrills out of a 
collection of sounds that would make people in the 
best society summon the police. 

When the music is in full swing, Nourma throws 
away the stump of her cigarette and walks indiffer- 
ently to the front of the platform. She is fat and 
"dumpy"; she has a don't-give-a-rap look on her 
sullen features; and her collection of coins and other 
bric-a-brac is meagre. Evidently she is not a star 
performer. All the dancers begin to chant some Arab 
love-song; Nourma raises her arms in front until her 
hands are on a level with her face, palms front (the 
second posture of an Arab at prayer!), and ambles 
about the stage like a cinnamon-bear on the village 
green. Finally she settles down in one place and lets 
her hips walk around while the rest of the body re- 



124 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

mains stationary. Then she waddles about the plat- 
form again, abruptly stops, steps down from the plat- 
form, and circulates among the spectators. A few 
admirers contribute small coins and she returns in dis- 
gust to her seat. 

Fatma comes next — also " dumpy," but not 
*' sloppy," and with a set of features which show 
that she is well pleased with life. She begins in the 
same way, but she puts " snap " into the movements. 
Every time she swings around to the spectators she 
banters them in Arabic, or catches up a bar of the 
love-song and hurls it at them. They like it and call 
for more. Then the music changes; every muscle in 
her body wriggles and she turns her mischievous eyes 
in every direction as the awakening audience yells to 
her to keep it up. When she gets tired, she quits as 
abruptly as Nourma and goes down to take up the 
collection. This takes some time, for some of her 
friends detain her with jests and other friendly doings 
before they give up the coin. She then returns to the 
platform and lights another cigarette. 

Next comes '' La Reine," and an exclamation rip- 
ples over the benches. She hears it and likes it. '' La 
Reine " has an Arab name, of course, but the first- 
nighters who came to see her initial performance were 
so carried away with it that they crowned her " The 
Queen " of the troupe. She is draped in gorgeous 
and expensive silks; her wrists and ankles are encircled 
with massive silver bands of curious workmanship; 
five strings of pearls are about her shapely throat; 
and at least one hundred and fifty coins (mostly gold) 



IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 125 

hang in strings from the top of her head to her waist, 
jingHng at every step and sparkhng in the dim light. 
Her face is pleasing, but the lips are a little thick; 
in the centre of each cheek is a small star (tattooed or 
painted, I know not), and there are two little black 
marks on each side of her nose and three on her 
chin. The eyebrows, heavily blacked with kohl, are 
extended from temples to the bridge of the nose — 
two arcs of a circle uniting to form a '' cupid's 
bow." 

As she raises her jingling hands to begin the dance, 
she gives a command to the musicians and the music 
becomes soft and sensuous. Her body begins to sway 
and quiver, and a plaintive chant comes from her lips. 
The audience cranes its neck and sits spellbound. An- 
other command and the musicians take their feet off 
the soft pedal. " La Reine " sways and whirls and 
clinks her pendant coins; her mischievous eyes single 
out her admirers like the flashes of a searchlight; and 
she sings to each a line of a love-song that comes out 
of the Sahara. Then it all changes again, as suddenly 
as if the lights were turned low. Trembling and quiv- 
ering and writhing, but with never a movement of the 
feet, she responds to the low, insistent notes of the 
piper until the tense nerves of the hot-blooded men of 
the Desert are near the breaking-point. Then she 
shakes her whole body violently until every coin is 
jingling, begins a vivacious chant that ends abruptly 
in a merry laugh — and starts out into the audience for 
more coin. 

It was the dance of art and of poetry — Arab art 



126 TliE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

and the poetry of the Great Sahara — ^but you will not 
often find it, even in the Rue des tiled -Nails. 

The traveller in southern Algeria will often bless 
the stars if he knows even a little French, for every- 
body aboard the little trains is interesting. If you 
sit semi-comfortably in a first-class compartment, your 
companion will be a government official, perhaps, or a 
colonel, or a rich merchant — and each has a story that 
unravels if you can get hold of the right end of the 
string. 

If you crowd into the second-class, you are jammed 
in with middle-class French and Italian colonists, with 
shop-keepers and tradesmen, with high-grade x\rabs — 
and if you let it appear that the language of France 
is as unintelligible to you as Arabic, your ears will be 
entertained. 

Or, you sit on the third-class benches and journey 
in the most interesting company of all — French sol- 
diers and Arabs of every class. But, if you would see 
en route the long, serpentine caravans winding over 
the dusty roads and the nomads in their brilliant garb 
of orange and purple and yellow and brown, be sure 
that you enter the train early and seize a seat by 
the window. Remember, also, the proverb of the 
barber-shop, '' Gentlemen leaving the room forfeit 
their turn ! " A good seat once vacated is gone for- 
ever, for the Arab stretches himself out and goes to 
sleep on it at the first opportunity. 

I recall one unusual coach that had a long bench 
extending lengthwise, a bench for six or eight passen- 



IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 127 

gers. There were three of us — a beneficent old Arab 
who looked like a Presbyterian elder, a bearded French 
sergeant of zouaves, and myself. When the train 
stopped at a junction, I went out for a stroll on the 
platform. When I returned, I found the whole bench 
occupied by my fellow-passengers. There they lay, 
fast asleep — the military boots up against the yellow 
sandals, the point of the French sabre against the end 
of the Arab stick. The contrast was so interesting in 
its symbolism that I forgot to be vexed over the loss 
of my place. 

Southward from Constantine and near to the Desert 
is the sunburnt town of Batna — ten miles from the 
ruins of Lambese, which was the headquarters of the 
famous Third Legion of Augustus Caesar. Here 
again there were three of us in a compartment, all 
journeying into the Algerian Sahara. My companions 
were bearded Arabs of the Desert, evidently persons 
of consequence. They sat facing each other, with 
their feet drawn up on the seat under them, and their 
sandals on the seat beside them. One was evidently 
infected with civilization, for he wore socks; the other 
was a barbarian whose bare feet were infected only 
with Algerian dirt. 

They talked in the language of Mohammed and 
gesticulated with such violence that I was long puzzled 
to know whether they were in anger or merely in 
earnest. Were they hot with indignation over the 
rumour that the French Government was about to 
force military service upon all Algerians? Or were 



128 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

they wrangling over some knotty problem in the 
Koran? Or was it the old story — the woman in the 
case? Just about the time when I expected blood to 
spatter over the walls, the train stopped at a village 
that looked like a stable-yard; the barbarian gathered 
up his footgear and bundles, kissed his hand to the 
other, and they parted the best of friends! 

And so the two of us were left for the rest of the 
journey going down into the South. We glanced at 
each other now and then, in a flirtatious way, but 
neither broke the impressive silence. Finally I re- 
membered my case of cigarettes — a case of imported, 
cork-tipped, golden-banded beauties reserved for im- 
portant occasions. I opened it and held it toward my 
be-socked companion. He bowed gravely and took 
one, but did not put it to his lips; I offered him a 
match, but he declined it. Evidently there was some- 
thing wrong about that cigarette. 

We stepped cautiously into conversation, as one 
steps into cold water, but his French was exceedingly 
limited. Every few minutes he would slip the ciga- 
rette from beneath his white burnouse and take a 
peep at it; the gold band and the cork were new 
propositions, perhaps. Finally I concluded that he 
was saving it to make an impression in his home 
town. 

By and by his eye rested upon my camera — an in- 
strument of abhorrence to all good Moslems, because 
it is a maker of graven images. I explained it to 
him and showed him some of the forbidden images. 
To my amazement, he asked me to make one of him — 




LA REIiXE DES OULED-NAILS 



IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 129 

just what I was longing to do. I suggested that we 
wait until the train should stop at another station. 

When it stopped, I requested that he step out into 
brighter light. He acquiesced, but insisted upon get- 
ting out on the off-side, where nobody would observe 
the sacrilegious performance. We hurriedly went 
through the rites and climbed back into the train. 
Then he expressed his readiness to see the picture ! I 
explained the impossibility, and suggested that he give 
me his name and address, that I might send it to him 
by mail. To my surprise, he wrote it himself, in an 
excellent hand— " Hassan ben Ahmed ben Amar, 
Tolga, via Biskra." 

The next day I learned that Hassan, the son of 
Ahmed, the son of Amar, was a holy man — much 
holier than I. His word is Alpha and Omega to a 
lot of wild-eyed men down in an oasis of the Zibans, 
where he insists upon every jot and tittle of the 
ancient law. Let us hope that his prestige has not 
suffered on account of that unholy cigarette and the 
image graven on a Rochester film! 



VIII 
THE WHITE HELMET IN THE SAHARA 

WHEN you think of the French Sahara as a 
land accursed of God, yoii think rightly. 
But when you conceive of it as a stretch of 
yellow sand broken, only by little circles of palm-trees 
grouped around a well, you think wrong. Sand there 
is — leagues and leagues and leagues of it — but there 
are a great many other things in the Desert. Plateaus 
of soft limestone — bare of all vegetation and deep- 
furrowed by torrent-beds whose hot, dry surface may 
be the roof of subterranean streams — these also are a 
part of the land of a thousand horrors. There are 
also countless shallow lakes (chotts) of alkaline water; 
the Chott Melgigh, for instance, is nearly 200 miles 
long. The edges of these lakes, where the water has 
evaporated, are beds of salt, and a chott in the sunlight 
or the moonlight gives the tantalizing illusion of being 
a field of snow. When your camel splashes through 
one of these shallow lakes, it disturbs hundreds of little 
fish ; passing through the areas dotted with sage-brush 
or " turpentine " bushes, you startle lizards, chame- 
leons, and peculiar-looking rats; now and then you 
may see a crested lark; the desert mountains are graz- 
ing-grounds for wild sheep and antelope and gazelles 

130 



THE WHITE HELMET IN THE SAHARA 131 

— so the Sahara is not wholly a lifeless land. Neither 
is it a summer-resort. 

The dunes of sand (erg, plural areg) may be traced 
on the map as vast islands of sand. The winds give 
to their surface a wave-like undulation, or pile them 
up in dunes varying from little mounds to hills that 
are a thousand yards high. The caravan trails wind 
tortuously around their base, where the earth is more 
solid. Even a slight wind lifts the sand-dust and 
causes it to i^ise like a mist, obliterating all tracks when 
it settles. Once I passed the Sahara at sea during the 
season of the harmattan winds, and the haze was so 
thick that it almost obscured the sun. I have a vial of 
this sand that was scraped from the deck fifty miles 
off-shore. If one imagine himself in the midst of 
an erg during the season of the harmattan, with his 
eyes and ears and nostrils filled with this impalpable 
sand-dust, and with the coarser grains being driven 
into his face with great force, he will appreciate one — 
and one of the smallest — of the discomforts of the 
Saharan explorers. 

These five physical features — plateaus of barren 
limestone, sand-dunes of varying height, torrent-beds 
of varying width, chotts and oases of varying size — 
make up the Great Desert. Its lowest point is near 
Biskra, and its highlands are mainly near the centre — 
geographical facts which were not considered by the 
dreamer who proposed to cut a canal and flood the 
Sahara with the ocean. One might as well try to 
inundate Arizona and New Mexico with the waters 
of the Gulf. 



THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Something like three milHons of people live within 
the limits of this forbidding zone. Most of them are 
listless Arabs living in mud huts near their date-palms ; 
others, like the Bedaween of the Great Tents, roam 
over the sands from one grazing spot to another ; still 
others, like the restless Touaregs, have less respectable 
ways of making a living. All of them have the 
Moslem's hate of the Christian, but their fataHsm does 
not save them from the living fear of death which the 
white man has put into their souls. He is everywhere 
in their midst — this new French master — fearless, tact- 
ful, helpful. You may take off your hat without 
shame in the presence of the white men of the Sahara; 
they have tackled one of the world's hard jobs and the 
beginnings are inspiring. 

Just by itself, the Sahara is not worth to any nation 
the price of flags to cover it, but it fits well into the 
imperial plans of France. Nobody expects to turn 
square miles of bare, burning rock into granaries of 
empire, but the Frenchmen are busy with their 
artesian outfits in the regions where only moisture 
is lacking. One by one the existing oases are extend- 
ing the productive area; year by year the dry beds of 
torrents are tapped and new oases added to the map. 
The great desert city of Touggourt, for example, was 
saved by French engineers when its wells began to dry 
up. But the most that we can expect in our lifetime 
is a chain of green stepping-stones across the blistering 
zone, a highway of commerce from the. Sudan to the 
Mediterranean. Yet it is not impossible that little 
black Touaregs now strapped to their mother's backs 



THE WHITE HELMET IN THE SAHARA 133 

may one day become " railroad men " in the southern 
Sahara. 

France's part of the Great Desert is shaped some- 
what Hke an ink-bottle — 2,500 miles across at the base 
and 700 miles at the neck (the Algerian Sahara). 
Draw on the map a horizontal line across this neck, 
from Igli on the Moroccan frontier to Ghadames on 
the boundary of Tripoli. That line — across the nar- 
rowest part of the Sahara, 500 miles of which lies in 
dunes of blistering sand — cuts through about twenty 
red lines winding from north to south. Each of the 
twenty is the trail of a man wearing a white helmet — 
a pathfinder of the French empire — an advance-agent 
of the maker of maps. 

Some day, when you are weary of the common- 
place records of ordinary men, take up the story of 
the exploration of the Sahara. The journals of Liv- 
ingstone and Stanley in the south tell of no deeds more 
daring, no endurance more heroic, no suffering more 
pitiful than the journals of the men who have toiled in 
the Great Desert. Lang and Barth and Richardson 
and Duveyrier have been forgotten; and a host of 
others like Flatters and Foureau and Lamy have never 
been really known to the American people. Which of 
the explorers spent more of his life on the trail than 
Foureau, with his long record of toilsome years? 
Who has journeyed farther through an unknown and 
dangerous region than he, the first white man to con- 
nect the Mediterranean and the Congo by an itinerary ? 
And how many have been " lost " in the Dark Con- 



134 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

tinent for so long? Late in 1898 couriers broke Fou- 
reau's last link of communication with Algeria; it was 
in 1900, in the French Congo, that he received the 
next news from home. Yet how many people realize 
that one of the most daring of all the African ex- 
plorers is yet alive? 

Spread before your eyes a fine French map of the 
Sahara, like that of Paul Pelet's in the atlas of the 
Lihrairie Armand Colin. It tells a wonderful story 
of French activity in one of the most pitiless of all 
lands. 

You see, of course, the great oasis cities of Ouargla 
and Figuig and El Golea and Laghouat and Timmi- 
moun and In-Salah and Tuat and Ghat — but see how 
the great empty spaces that lay between on the old 
maps have been filled in with the names of villages 
and watering-places. Two black lines mark the rail- 
roads that have already entered the Desert, and two 
broken lines extending across the leagues of sand-dunes 
(El Erg and Grand Erg) show how much farther the 
steel roads have already been plotted. But you may 
also find all the caravan routes that cross the Sahara 
carefully traced from oasis to oasis, with little circles 
to mark the natural wells and black dots to show where 
a French engineer has pushed his drill all the way 
down to " living water." Here and there you see a 
little square; it tells you that here is a troop of spahis 
or goums, with their French officers, keeping guard 
over the Tricolour and making the long, hot trail 
across the furnace floor to Mecca or to market as safe 



THE WHITE HELMET IN THE SAHARA 135 

as the Santa Fe trail now is. All the way across and 
on to Lake Chad, at varying distances apart, you see 
little T's — the chain of telegraph stations from Al- 
geria to the Sudan. The Frenchman a dreamer? 
Yes, he dreamed of cutting a canal to let in the 
Mediterranean and he has had visions of a Trans- 
Saharan Railroad from Oran to Timbuctoo. But he is 
a doer as well as a dreamer. Presently you will be 
reading of French aeroplanes flying from one oasis to 
another, carrying Les Temps and letter-pouches to the 
men of the white helmet, sun-scorched men who yearn 
also for a piece of ice. 

The simplest sort of catalogue of what the French 
have already done in this forbidding and unproductive 
land would make a thrilling record of achievement, 
and their work is only well begun. Moreover, it 
should be remembered that white helmets are a shin- 
ing mark in the bright sunlight and the Desert is full 
of men who consider it a passport to divine favour 
to hit one of them with a bullet. I have seen helmets 
coming out of the south with the marks of battle upon 
them ; and I have seen helmets going into the south, on 
beneficent well-boring errands, guarded by camel- 
cavalrymen. And, on the southern fringe of the 
Sahara, the land of the black-veiled Touaregs, you 
may view the same spectacle. But French imperi- 
alism is thoroughly in earnest and Mediterranean 
civilization is steadily replacing the type that was 
made in Mecca. By and by we shall have annual 
reports from Monsieur the Director of Touareg 
Schools. It is even possible that one of the Baedeker 



136 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

masterpieces may blaze the Saharan trail for the tender 
tourist. 

But will all these dreams of African empire fall 
short of realization, after all? One man's guess is 
as good as another's, and we can only guess. French- 
men have dreamed stupendous projects before. One 
saw all the thrones of Europe standing about and 
making obeisance to his throne — but Waterloo inter- 
vened. It is a Frenchman's statue that overlooks the 
Suez Canal, but the British flag now covers the land 
of Egypt. The Panama Canal was another French 
dream, but the dredges rusted out their lives in the 
mud. France once had a magnificent colonial empire 
in the New World, and every acre of it slipped through 
the fingers. The over-seas history of the French 
makes one doubt the stability of the national char- 
acter, but history does not always repeat itself. 



^ 



IX 
THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 

WHEN any speaker or writer, anywhere in the 
English-speaking world, wants to check up 
his facts and figures about some other part 
of the globe, he turns to the last " Statesman's Year- 
Book." If the two sets of figures do not agree, he 
throws his own away and uses those made in Great 
Britain. To the last " Statesman's Year-Book " I turn, 
therefore, to check up what I learned about Morocco 
while in Morocco itself. The erudite editor of the 
Year-Book is '' J. Scott Keltic, LL.D., Secretary to 
the Royal Geographical Society, Honorary Correspond- 
ing Member of the Geographical Societies of Scot- 
land, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Rome, Lisbon, Amster- 
dam, Brussels, Buda Pest, Geneva, Neuchatel, 
Philadelphia, and of the Commercial Geographical 
Society of Paris." 

Obviously, very few things can happen anywhere 
between the North Pole and Farthest South without 
Dr. Keltic knowing it — especially since his preface 
acknowledges " the generous cooperation, as in past 
years, of the Government departments of the various 
States of the world, including those of the British 
Empire." Hear, then, what J. Scott Keltic, LL.D., 
saith on page 1018: 

137 



1S8 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

"The form of Government of the Sultanate, or Empire of 
Morocco, is in reality an absolute despotism, unrestricted by any 
laws, civil or religious. The Sultan is chief of the State, as well 
as head of the religion. . . , The Sultan has six ministers, 
whom he consults if he deems it prudent to do so; otherwise they 
are merely the executive of his unrestricted will." 

All this you truly believe — if you are an inmate of 
one of the institutions for the feeble-minded. " Ab- 
solute despotism " ? " Unrestricted will " ? Oh, cer- 
tainly — within the circle whose circumference is the 
outer edge of the shadow cast by the Cherifian um- 
brella. 

Dr. Keltic has enlivened the pages of the Year- 
Book with several little jokes like this. Egypt, for 
instance, is solemnly placed under the heading of 
" Turkey," and this is what he says about its Govern- 
ment : " The administration of Egypt is carried on by 
native Ministers, subject to the ruling of the Khedive." 
Shall Anglo-Saxon humour perish from the earth? 
Not if Dr. Keltic can help it. 

It is a waste of time to take the back-trail of 
Moroccan history and watch the Moors being chased 
out of the Spanish castles whose keys have been 
handed down from father to son since 1492 in the 
expectation of a future return. What matters it now 
that Romans once ruled in the land, or that the Portu- 
guese swarmed along the coast, or that Spanish is the 
prevailing foreign language in Tangier? Everything 
in Morocco that is not British or French or German is 
now ancient history. True, Spain has fought right 
well for the narrow strip of coast that extends from 



THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 139 

Tangier eastward to Algeria, and may do so again, 
but it is a hopeless fight. The day of Castile and 
Aragon in North Africa is done. 

In 1904 Great Britain and France (assuming that 
nobody else had anything to say in the matter) entered 
into a " gentleman's agreement " that was designed to 
fix the future of Morocco for all time to come. With 
the understanding that French concessionaires would 
not gobble up all the Moorish plums and that the 
French would build no rival Gibraltars near the en- 
trance to the Mediterranean, Morocco was virtually 
turned over to France. In the wonderful language 
of diplomacy, it is thus expressed: 

" Great Britain recognizes that it appertains to France to 
assist in the administrative, economic, financial, and military re- 
forms in Morocco." 

English translation: 

"Great Britain agrees to get out of the way and let France run 
the Moroccan government, control everything from commerce to 
agriculture, collect and spend Moroccan money, and pull the lead 
out of the cartridges of the Moorish army." 

" What did France do for England in return ? " I 
asked sundry diplomats on the hillside. 

They pointed to two houses farther up • the hill. 
From one flew the flag of Britain; the Tricolour was 
on the other. 

" Apply within," was the answer. 

I found the answer (at least, I believe it to be) far 
down the western coast, where a militant British 
Consul-General was telling an American-born republic 



140 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

that if it did not quickly do some impossible things, it 
must prepare '' at no distant date to disappear from 
the catalogue of independent states." Strange to say, 
I found that the French consul had packed his trunk 
and departed — though France was supposed to be 
acutely interested in Liberian territory. 

"How is this?" I asked his Britannic Majesty's 
Consul-General in Monrovia. 

" Oh," replied Captain Wallis, " France will take 
no action in Liberian affairs without consulting His 
Majesty's Government." 

Liberia, therefore, may be the answer. '' Splash 
me in Morocco and Fll splash you in Liberia." 

But Britain and France overlooked a gentleman in 
Berlin — a highly respected member of the Hohen- 
zollern family. The Kaiser paddled his little boat 
across to Tangier and made so much splash that all 
Europe heard it. The result was another " gentle- 
man's agreement " — the Algeciras Conference of 1906 
— with Germany and Spain present as active members 
and certain inconsequential nations like the United 
States as associate members. The absence of the Sul- 
tan of Morocco occasioned no embarrassment; all that 
was required of him was his signature to the agree- 
ment of the other gentlemen. 

The solemn conclave across the bay at Algeciras 
really made very little change in the Moroccan situa- 
tion. The interior of the country was left to the Sul- 
tan — for the present. Spain retained its own territory 
and was given a sop in the arrangement for policing 



THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 141 

the coast towns. Germany was given assurances that 
its traders would not have the door closed in their 
faces. Morocco remained a French " sphere of in- 
fluence." 

Casablanca was apparently selected by France as 
the place for its entering wedge. In August, 1907, a 
perfectly good reason for bombarding it was found. 
Then the protection of the interests of French sub- 
jects justified the landing of troops. They are there 
yet, of course. It is the same old story. 

Then came the mix-up with Germany. Hamburg 
and Bremen had become convinced that they were to be 
shut out of Moorish markets, so the Kaiser began to 
seek a perfectly good reason for making a fuss. Some 
Germans in the Foreign Legion of the French army 
at Casablanca furnished it. (Remember the Foreign 
Legion? Your romantic friend from " Bingen on the 
Rhine," who " lay dying at Algiers," was a member 
of it.) The end came when the Kaiser received satis- 
factory assurances about his share of the commerce — 
and Morocco remains a French " sphere of influence." 

Meanwhile, the native overlords of Morocco were 
having the usual gentleman's disagreement. When I 
steamed out of the harbour, there were four rival 
Sultans thirsting for one another's blood — and harem. 
Mulai Abdul-Aziz and his troupe of chorus-girls were 
on a boat in Tangier harbour, " down and out." 
Mulai Hafid was at Fez, thinking up new and in- 
genious methods of torturing insurgents. Mulai 
Mohammed was having himself proclaimed in the 



142 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Marrakesch region. " The Pretender " was cutting a 
wide swath through the Riffian hills. And Raisuli 
(not a Mulai but a plain British subject) was furnish- 
ing as much copy for the daily paper as all of them 
together. 

Since then, Hafid has '' fixed " Mohammed, tor- 
tured " The Pretender," and given Raisuli a fat job — 
thus disposing of everybody except the foreigner. But 
what happens at Fez does not greatly disturb the little 
man who sits up in the French legation and passes the 
time in reading the winking signals from his gunboats 
below or in flashing a '' wireless " overland to Casa- 
blanca. His only comment is the French version of 
" If you want to know who is boss around here, start 
something! " 

Something will be started by and by, but let us not 
be sorrowful over the prospect. Remember that Mo- 
rocco is a sultanate whose national hymn might 
appropriately be made from its proverb : 

" Why run when you can walk? Why walk when 
you can sit? Why sit when you can lie down? " 

Morocco cannot properly be regarded, therefore, as 
a land of Oriental calm. There are five storm-centres, 
with the nucleus of a different kind of whirlwind in 
each: 

(i) Tangier, just across from Gibraltar; it is the 
tourists' Mecca and the seat of all the legations. Up 
in the ancient kasbah, encircled by Moorish cavalry- 
men longing for a pay-day, sits a bashaw; on the out- 
skirts of the city you will see Moorish soldiers in 



THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 143 

khaki with a " 2 " on their collars — the Spanish po- 
lice; but " I " is on the collars of the French police, 
and the real chief is entrenched in the Legation of 
France up above the Grand Soco. 

(2) Fez, the capital of Morocco, about four days' 
ride in the interior. Here, within embattled walls and 
shut in by yet more forbidding ramparts of bigotry, 
jealousy, and hate, sits the hobbled Sultan, surrounded 
by European " agents " who watch every move. 

(3) Casablanca, on the western coast, the headquar- 
ters of the French army of occupation. Here, per- 
haps, you and I may one day see the chief city of 
Morocco. 

(4) Melilla, on the northeastern coast, near the 
Algerian frontier, where the red and yellow flag that 
once flapped over a large part of the Western Hemi- 
sphere now casts a limp shadow upon a hot city of 
convicts and barracks. The hills yonder are full of 
terrors, for nobody knows when the Riffians will re- 
sume their national game of sharp-shooting the Span- 
ish sentinels. 

(5) Marrakesch, in the southern mountains be- 
tween Fez and the coast — ^the ancient Moorish capital, 
now a stronghold of Moorish '' stand-patters " and at 
the same time a hot-bed of " insurgents." 

In any one of these centres, at any moment, one 
man may loose a tornado that may even spread over 
Europe. Moreover, if the calm should become too 
oppressive, that gentleman bandit Raisuli may have 
the squadrons of half of Europe in the harbour of 
Tangier. 



lU THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

It is not easy, even for La Depeche Marocaine, 
Tangier's French daily, to keep tab on the political 
status of Sidi Mohammed Raisuli. (It is safe to as- 
sume that Mohammed is his front name, for the 
majority of Moroccans wear the Prophet's label. Go 
into the crowded market-place of Tangier and shout 
" Mohammed ! " and see how many Moors prick up 
their ears.) One of the divertisements of a Moroc- 
can breakfast table is the Raisuli column in La 
Depeche; what it lacks in definiteness or authen- 
ticity is amply compensated for by its infinite variety. 
The news is always several days old by the time a 
courier arrives from Fez, for there is no telegraph line 
to the capital, and Raisuli does not carry around with 
him a wireless telegraph station. 

What is Raisuli? The answer is always changing 
as to detail, but permanent in one respect : He is a live 
wire. Of all the native gentlemen of North Africa 
since the time when Abd-el-Kader played tag with 
Napoleon's veterans in Algeria, Raisuli has had prob- 
ably the most picturesque career — and he is not on 
the retired list yet, not by any means. He has been 
Bashaw of Tangier — a post for which the present 
incumbent is reported to have paid $85,000 — and his 
personal property has once been sold at auction in the 
market-place of the same city. Famed far and wide 
as a kidnapper of British and American citizens, he 
is himself a British subject. He has had his house 
in an obscure village burned by a handful of Moorish 
troops, but he has also had the Mediterranean squad- 
ron of the United States Navy, plus a British war- 




A LITTLE MAGDALEN OF MOROCCO 



THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 145 

boat, called into the harbour of Tangier on his 
account. 

His chief distinction has come as a gentleman 
bandit, on a large scale« He has been the James Broth- 
ers of Morocco, if you please, and he has always got- 
ten away with the loot. In 1903, he made Mr. Walter 
Harris, a British correspondent and wealthy resident 
of Tangier, his reluctant guest until a board-bill 
amounting to thousands of guineas was paid. The 
following year he made a formal call at the beautiful 
chateau of Mr. Ion Perdicaris, overlooking the Bay 
of Trafalgar, and both Mr. Perdicaris and his stepson 
were forced to return the call immediately. All that 
Raisuli asked for their ransom was this: 

(i) The release of a large number of personal friends who 
were then Moorish prisoners in the jail at Tangier. 

(2) The recall to Fez of the Sultan's troops, who were a 
menace to Raisuli's business. 

(3) A cash sum of $55,000, to be provided only from the sale 
of property belonging to his enemies, the Bashaws of Tangier 
and Fez. 

(4) Four or five small districts to be absolutely ceded to 
Raisuli by the Sultan. 

(5) The imprisonment of two objectionable sheikhs, and of 
two sons of one of them. 

(6) Free access to the markets to be given to the outlawed 
tribesmen who had given Raisuli refuge. 

(7) The curt dismissal of the Bashaw of Tangier. 

(8) Immunity guarantee against punishment by the United 
States or Great Britain. 

He got everything except Number 8, and practic- 
ally received that. From this it is evident that Raisuli 
did not miss his calling in life. His last success, the 
capture of Caid Maclean, was of the same piece. 



146 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

When I first arrived in Tangier, I found that this 
successful business man was living quietly as a Moor- 
ish gentleman in a handsome home about five minutes' 
walk outside the old wall. I was assured that he was 
" down and out," so far as public affairs in Morocco 
were concerned. Nevertheless, I had a strong desire 
to see the Moor who could call out a whole squadron 
of the American Navy and get what he wanted just 
as easily as if the warships had been fishing-smacks. 
A diplomatic plan for an interview with the gentleman 
was carefully worked out by a friend with experience 
in Moorish diplomacy, but the delay of a few days 
proved fatal. The evil wind that wafted misfortune 
in my direction, however, brought interesting " copy " 
to La Depeche in a series of reports that lasted sev- 
eral weeks. The most important are the following : 

Rumour No. i. Raisuli left yesterday for Fez. Perhaps the 
new Sultan sent for him. Perhaps he didn't. Anyway, there is 
" something doing." 

Rumour No. 2. Courier from Fez with news that Raisuli has 
been given command of a mehalla of the Sultan's troops, to be 
sent into the mountainous district near El-Ksar to collect back 
taxes for several years. Good job, and good man for the job. 

Rumour No. 3. Courier from Fez reports that Raisuli is to be 
appointed Governor of Tangier. " La nouvelle a cause a Tanger 
une veritable stupefaction." 

Rumour No. 4. Courier from Fez brings the news of Raisuli's 
appointment as Governor of the Fahs district, extending up to 
the walls of Tangier and including many European villas. 

Several interesting events followed this piece of 
news. The leading Moors of the Fahs district came 
into Tangier and, by way of protest, sacrificed a sheep 



THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 147 

at the door of every European legation — and oi La 
Depeche. This was supposed by the Moors to be a 
sort of blood covenant that could not be ignored. 
Then the delegation called on the Sultan's representa- 
tive in Tangier, but that diplomat of the old school 
replied that no protest could be considered unless in 
writing and properly signed. The delegation retired, 
called a meeting in a caravanserai in the market-place, 
and signed the petition in due form. 

Rumour No. 5. Raisuli, the new Governor of Fahs, has opened 
an office on the street leading from the market to the beach, and 
his representative will there receive back taxes. Better come in 
and pay up. (The office was reported closed two days later.) 

Rumour No. 6. Courier from Fez brings a letter from the 
Sultan to the signers of the Fahs petition, inviting them to come 
to the capital and talk it over. The signers expressed great re- 
gret that they could not accept the invitation. Previous engage- 
ment. 

Rumour No. 7. Courier from Fez brings a report that Raisuli 
is to be given command of a mehalla to go against the Pretender 
in the mountains back of Melilla and kidnap him alive or dead, 
preferably dead. General opinion is that, if this rumour be true, 
the Pretender will cease to pretend. 

Rumour No. 8. In a private letter from Fez, it is said that 
Raisuli is in disfavour with Sultan Mulai Hafid and has been 
imprisoned. No celebration in Tangier or Fahs, for the news is 
too good to be true. 

Just at this point I left Morocco, after having 
waited many days for a rumour that the gentleman so 
frequently mentioned in the despatches was on his 
way back to Tangier. 

Why is Raisuli ? Why does the new Sultan, at this 
delicate point in Moroccan history, dare the displeas- 



148 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

ure of the Powers by designating for high position 
and Cherifian honours a bandit whom the Powers have 
reason to dishke ? 

There are several reasons, most of them good. 
Raisuh detests Europeans and would gladly drive them 
out of the country; so would the Sultan. Raisuli has 
powerful friends among the northern tribes, and can 
raise an army at will; the Sultan needs all the friends 
and troops that he can get. Raisuli is a successful 
financier and his ingenious ways of raising money 
usually work out; the Sultan needs the money. Be- 
sides, Raisuli has done what no recent Sultan could 
do : he has defied powerful nations and not had to 
suffer for it. Finally, the probability is that Mulai 
Hafid is afraid not to honour Raisuli, lest the daring 
chieftain start a revolt that will dethrone him. Raisuli 
cannot himself become Sultan, because he is not a 
cherif (descendant of the Prophet); but there are 
plenty of cherif s in Morocco whose cause Raisuli 
might espouse. 

All in all, the bandit sustains about the same rela- 
tion to his sovereign that Tammany Hall bears to 
New York Democracy. He is not a patriot in any 
real sense, but he is a ward-leader who must be reck- 
oned with by any native ruler. If France should suc- 
ceed in establishing a " protectorate " in Morocco, 
Raisuli will have good cause to thank Allah for the 
gift of British citizenship. He could not get even a 
job of a road-overseer under a French regime. And 
when a man steps down in Morocco, he steps '' away 
down." 



THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 149 

The traveller who goes ashore at Tangier soon finds 
himself as hopelessly mixed as Moroccan politics. If 
he wanders about alone in the crooked streets, he pres- 
ently meets himself coming back to the starting-place. 
His souvenir postal-cards may be mailed at four sepa- 
rate post-offices, with different stamps on each. Or, 
at a British hotel he may exchange French money for 
Spanish postage and mail his letter in a German post- 
office. But he may not put British, French, German, 
and Spanish stamps on the same letter, for that might 
lead to international complications. 

He may also do coin tricks equal to those of the 
prestidigitators. Let him take an American quarter- 
dollar and exchange it for English money : he now has 
a shilling, and a ha'penny over. He may exchange 
the shilling for a French franc, and receive thirty or 
forty centimes in change. The franc may be traded 
for a Spanish peseta, plus twenty centimos in copper. 
The Spanish peseta may now be converted into a 
Moorish^ peseta (" Hassani "), with a handful of cop- 
per to boot. He now has his pockets weighted down 
with American, English, French, Spanish, and Moor- 
ish copper, yet he can buy just as much from a Moor 
with his Hassani peseta as he could have bought with 
his original quarter! 

In a thoughtless moment one day, I held out a 
Hassani peseta to Mr. George E. Holt, American Vice- 
Consul-General at Tangier, and asked him how much 
it was worth. 

" A Hassani peseta/' he replied glibly, " is worth lo 
dhirems or 20 hdli-dhirems/' 



150 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

" And 20 hali-dhirems equal " 



" Two or three cents less than a Spanish peseta" 
he answered. " But you must remember that the valu- 
ation of Moorish silver fluctuates from day to day; at 
times it is oflicially worth only a third of its face 
value." 

" To-day is Thursday," I said, in desperation. 
'' The hour is 1 145 p.m. Would you mind telling me 
just how much this Hassani is worth in American 
cents, at this moment?" 

" I'll figure it all out for you," he answered. 

At 2 130 he was still figuring, so I crept softly out 
and wandered into a Moorish tea-house. There I spent 
the Hassani in riotous living. 



X 

CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 

THE December sun was just rising from the 
morning mists like a globe of burnished gold, 
flooding our little world with a blaze of yel- 
low light. The man at the wheel leaned to the spokes 
and the nose of the Royal Mail packet swung slowly 
around toward the low-lying coast-line. Far in the 
distance, like whitening shells on a beach of sand, we 
could pick out a few minarets and villas. Casablanca 
— the little Moorish town that had for months threat- 
ened to draw France and Germany into war with each 
other — was at hand. 

All night the little passenger-boat had been having 
fun with the stomachs of some tourist persons from 
London — stomachs which had not yet forgotten the 
Bay of Biscay. Now it would roll like a camel in 
full swing; then it would have a spell of rising and 
pitching like a porpoise; there were exclamations of 
regret when the bow would fall over a cross-wave and 
throw the propeller-blades into the air with a whir-r-r 
that sent a shiver through every part of the ship — and 
through one part of nearly every passenger. It was 
"most extraordinary, don't you know?" But the 
thought of lying for twenty-four hours in the har- 

151 



152 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

hour of Casablanca made even the stout gentleman 
from Manchester take a new grip on life. 

But it was evident, half an hour later, that the 
Agadir had jumped from the frying-pan into the boil- 
ing teapot. Every fathom's length gave us a new sort 
of lurch; a sullen roar with now and then a deep 
"boom!" told of the violence with which the mad 
Atlantic w^as driving against the sand and rocks. Then 
came the long rattle of the anchor chain, and the man 
from Manchester came waddling up-deck. 

" Cahn't we go in any closer, Captain? " he asked, 
anxiously. 

"If we go closer, we may never come out," said 
the skipper, cheerfully. " See how fast that line of 
breakers is going in? " 

Manchester took one look at the foaming surf, 
groaned, and waddled aft to his stateroom. 

We were so far off-shore that strong glasses were 
required to make out the nationality of the consular 
flags in Casablanca. The massive walls of the un- 
finished breakwater were visible, but not a surf-boat 
was in sight. The Captain, who was in a hurry to 
discharge cargo, paced the deck — and I fear that he 
swore. 

Finally a little speck appeared on the distant beach; 
the glasses showed that it was a boat being pushed 
into the surf. We watched it for perhaps an hour; 
sometimes it was so high upon the crest of a curling 
wave that it seemed to be turning a somersault; then 
it would disappear for such a long interval that we 



CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 153 

thought that it had gone down. When it was half- 
way, a ship's officer identified it as " the Company 
boat." 

It came alongside, grappled our gangway with a 
boat-hook, and rose and fell ten feet at a time while 
the Moorish chauffeur yelled things to our Captain. 

" He says there will be no boats coming off to-day," 
interpreted the skipper, gloomily. " Says seven big 
surf-boats were smashed yesterday and his men have 
lost their nerve." 

" But are we not going ashore ? " I asked. " The 
Company advertises that " 

'' My dear man ! " answered the Captain, " how can 
you go ashore when there are no boats? Look at 
those waves ! Even if you could get ashore you might 
be left behind, for if my anchor slips I shall have 
to go to sea." 

" But isn't this surf-boat going back? " 

'' It's going to start back," was the cautious reply 
of British conservatism. 

I leaned over the rail and watched the excited Moors 
in the boat; they were having a beautiful time keep- 
ing from being smashed against the Agadlr. Just 
then I heard a cheerful voice directed toward me : 

'' Are you thinking of going ashore ? " it asked. 
The speaker was a chunky little man with a Van Dyck 
beard — German or French perhaps, certainly not 
British. 

" Yes, thinking of it," I answered. '' But the Cap- 
tain says *" aher nicht! ' " 



154 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

" Suppose we go back with these dagoes ? " he 
suggested. 

" I'm with you." 

" Wait a minute till I tell my wife." 

While he was gone, I gave the protesting captain my 
home address — ^just as a matter of formality. Then 
the Van Dyck reappeared and we practised the rare 
sport of di"opping into a surf -boat at the psycho- 
logical moment when it was on top of a wave, in- 
stead of falling down into the trough. We both 
landed in the boat. The Moor who commanded 
it took the precaution of collecting our fares in 
advance. 

We had our money's worth before we reached land. 
The breakers that looked wild from the steamer-deck 
were alarming when viewed from a row-boat; the 
force that rocked the steel Agadir had our skiff at 
its mercy. We held on to the side to. keep from being 
pitched out. 

" I think you must be a countryman of mine," re- 
marked my white companion, in one of the least- 
anxious moments. 

''Perhaps," I said. "Where are you from?" 

" Iowa," he answered. 

" I have heard of the town " — and, in the face of 
all the traditional curses upon the man who rocks the 
boat, we shook hands. 

We did not begin a discussion of the political situa- 
tion in the Middle West, for the excited voice of our 
helmsman indicated that we had reached a point where 
a boat must race with the breakers toward a certain 



CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 155 

point — and whichever gets there first, wins. We got 
there first. The last hundred yards was easy; our 
boat sHd up on the beach and the American invasion 
of Casablanca was a reality. Then we shook hands 
again. 

" I hope that the sea will be less rambunctious when 
we go back," remarked Lewis, of Iowa and London. 

" I am pretty sure it will quiet down before / go 
back! Something seems to tell me so." 

To the two Americans just cast up by the waves, 
the points of interest in Casablanca were not the 
mosques and other relics listed in the guide-books of 
the tourists who waited on the Agadir for oil to be 
poured on the troubled waters. This was the place 
where the French camel stuck its head into the Mo- 
roccan stable-door. What cared we for the ancient 
chronicles of Portuguese governors and Moorish 
bashaws? Casablanca is a city of the here and now; 
modern history was bubbling over in the pot and we 
were looking for the bubbles. 

And so we clambered over the huge blocks of gran- 
ite that were waiting for the masons to cement them 
into the impregnable breakwater that would make a 
harbour after the heart of Frenchmen. We walked 
the little track over which run the first trains that 
have yet invaded the antiquated domain of the Sultan. 
We circumnavigated the old fort and looked for the 
carnage that had been wrought by French gunboats — 
but found only a few jagged holes in the crumbly 
walls. 



156 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

The man who has not heard of Casablanca would fit 
well into an exhibit of illiteracy. An obscure town on 
the northwest coast of Morocco, it became a boon to 
cable companies and to editors; more of sensational 
copy went from there to the newspapers of France, 
Germany, Spain, and England in two years than from 
all the rest of Africa put together. 

No sooner had it ceased to be of interest as the one 
place on the globe where there was real fighting than 
it sprang into prominence again as a possible casus 
belli between Germany and France. There was at 
Casablanca a French regiment known as the For- 
eign Legion, made up of ex-convicts, gentlemen ad- 
venturers, and adventurers who were not gentlemen, 
from practically every country in Europe. Several 
German soldiers of this Legion deserted the colours 
and then claimed the protection of their consulate. 
The French commander ignored the claim and arrested 
the deserters. The little German vice-consul protested 
and leaped at one bound into international prominence 
— alongside the French vice-consul who had given the 
signal for the bombardment of Casablanca and who is 
said to have been first reprimanded and then decorated 
with the Legion of Honour. 

A little incident like the squabble over the de- 
serters would ordinarily be settled out of the papers, 
for the only question at issue was the legality of the 
arrest of criminals while under consular protection. 
But Germany was then hunting trouble with France 
in Morocco, and this afforded the chance. The wires 
from Berlin to Paris were soon at white heat, and the 



CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 157 

newspaper compositors kept " The Incident at Casa- 
blanca " as a standing head. 

A Moorish city of 20,000, founded by Portuguese, 
with a Spanish name meaning " White House," and 
occupied by the French — that is Casablanca. It is a 
flat town of reasonably white houses, with flat roofs, 
lying on a flat coast. The architecture is mainly 
European. 

It was a disappointment to find Casablanca to be a 
wretched, dirty town. Its streets were as abominable 
as if no European had ever invaded them, and there 
was an absence of the fine stores that ornament and 
serve most of the North African cities. Evidently 
the French were waiting until their tenure should be- 
come more certain. But they are said to be buying 
real estate in large sections and at " boom " prices. 

*' While we are seeing history-in-the-making," I 
suggested, " let's find the French camp and see General 
d'Amade, the maker." 

" How can we get at him? " 
" I have a letter that will turn the trick." 
" You seem to be a travelling post-office." 
" My African outfit is made up of three parts let- 
ters of introduction and one part kodak supplies. 
Come on ! " And off we went to lay siege to the 
French army of occupation. 

Once, when both I and a Chickamauga sentry were 
sadly unversed in military etiquette, I had gained ac- 
cess to two big Generals by the simple method of walk- 
ing into their tents and saluting. (Both the sentry 



158 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

and I escaped court-martial.) I did not find the en- 
tree into the presence of the French commander so 
easy. 

The camp was outside the city, and it was a camp 
to be proud of. Neat barracks roofed with corru- 
gated zinc were mathematically arranged like over- 
grown bath-houses, along company streets that were 
as clean as a floor. At the gate was an Arab tirailleur, 
standing '' at ease." He came to " attention " as we 
approached and inquired for General d'Amade, but not 
a sign of intelligence crossed the face of the bronze 
statue. Apparently he had never heard of the man. 

We continued the one-sided conversation in French 
of one syllable, but it left us still standing outside the 
gate. Finally we made hubbub enough to arouse the 
sergeant of the guard — a tall Algerian who spake in 
the tongue of his commanders. He was not enthusias- 
tic over our visit, but I impressed it upon him that 
the letter in my hand was from the Government of 
France. Then he decided to deliver it. 

Monsieur le sergeant was more afifable when he re- 
turned. He lost no time in inviting us to come in 
out of the wet and follow him to the officers' quar- 
ters. There he disappeared into one of the bath- 
houses. While we waited, I carefully pieced together 
a few French phrases for whatever aide should come 
to inquire into the object of our visit. 

The door opened and out stepped a tall, grey- 
moustached officer in baggy cavalry trousers and un- 
dress blouse. It was the hero of Casablanca himself! 

General d'Amade had been described to me in Ian- 



CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 159 

guage which would fit General Weyler, " the butcher 
of Cuba." I expected to see a curt, snarly, evil-visaged 
man with cruel lines about the mouth. Instead, I was 
met by a handsome, smiling gentleman with the bluest 
eye that I ever saw in a fighting man. He spoke Eng- 
lish freely and answered every question frankly and 
without reserve. Moreover, he seemed to be pleased 
that two Americans should think it worth while to 
walk out to pay their respects. 

The first meeting between General d'Amade and the 
Moors, as described by a resident of Casablanca, was 
hardly so pleasant as ours. General Drude, his prede- 
cessor, showed a preference for city life and did so 
much of his skirmishing near the walls that the Moors 
decided that the French troops were afraid. When 
d'Amade was sent over, he ordered the legionnaires 
to tighten up their belts for a little exercise in the 
country. The Moors ran, as usual^ but the French 
did not stop, as usual. Then the Moors broke up into 
detachments and took to cover. D'Amade hitched a 
balloon to a caisson and sent signal-service men up 
into the air to locate the different bands and direct 
the aim of the artillerymen who were feeding shells 
into the light batteries. Some of the Moors are sup- 
posed to be running yet. The new General showed a 
fondness for the idea that where the vanguard rests 
to-day, the rear should camp to-morrow. Result : He 
told me that he had his outpost sixty miles inland, and 
that it would be safe for me to go anywhere within 
that limit. 



160 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Convinced that the French commander was not him- 
self a cruel and brutal fighter, Lewis and I set out to 
" size up " the rank and file. We went everywhere in 
Casablanca — wandering through street after street, 
loitering about the wine-shops, lounging in the open 
spaces wherever !Moors were congregating — but there 
was absolutely nothing to indicate that the city was 
under martial rule. In the gathering dusk we encoun- 
tered the General and an aide riding through the na- 
tive quarter on a final tour of inspection, but nobody 
ran for cover. 

Finally, about nine in the evening, we saw a sign 
which announced a dance in one of the amusement 
places — the " Eden " concert-hall. 

''Ah!" we said, "here is where we shall behold 
a wild time " — and w^e made for the sign. The cafe 
was almost deserted and fiot a sound of revelry could 
be heard. 

" Where is the ball ? " we asked a Frenchman. 

" Oh, it doesn't begin until midnight! " he said. 

A cafe chantant called " Eden," with a soldiers' ball 
that begins at midnight, seemed to us the place where 
we should see wild disorder in all its tumult. We, 
therefore, made an engagement to take each other to 
the fandango. 

Promptly at midnight we were at the cafe. About 
fifty French " non-coms " from various regiments, 
half a dozen civilians, and a few French waitresses 
were in the brilliantly lighted hall. The music and 
the wine were both uncorked and the French soldier's 
idea of a '*' wild time " was in action. The room was 



CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 161 

full of ribald song, the floor was full of dancers, and 
everybody was full of wine. 

Those who are familiar with resorts frequented by 
soldiers will recognize the conditions requisite for '' a 
rough house " — especially when consideration is given 
to the significant fact that there was not more than 
one demoiselle to ten soldiers, and that the maidens 
were of the attractive kind that men around the world 
fight over. We spent two hours in the boisterous 
throng waiting for somebody to " start something." 
To our utter amazement there was neither fighting nor 
quarrelling, nor was there any apparent rudeness to- 
ward the girls. It was a revelation of French char- 
acter — or of manners, if you prefer — which was 
wholly new to me. I doubt if the result could be 
duplicated in the camp of any other nation in the 
world. 

If an American anywhere along the Moroccan 
coast announces his intention of visiting Casablanca, 
somebody will say, " Be sur^ to see Captain Cobb." 
We saw him. 

A diminutive follower of the Prophet led us by 
devious ways to one of Casablanca's institutions — a. 
saw-mill and a flour-mill combined. Here lives the 
one genuine American resident of the town — a Con- 
necticut sea-captain who lost his ship off Gibraltar 
some thirty years ago and who has never come home. 
The unfinished structure of Brooklyn Bridge is the 
most distinct recollection of New York City as he 
last saw it. He is an antique on an antiquated shore. 



162 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Stepping inside the doorway we saw a lean Yankee 
with white, whisk-broom chin-whiskers hammering 
away on a broken cog-wheel. With him was another 
retired sea-dog, Captain Taylor of the Royal Mail. 

The Connecticut skipper poised his hammer for a 
moment while we explained that we were two of his 
fellow-countrymen. We expected that when he heard 
the news he would throw his hammer at the English- 
man, seize us in his arms, and do a war-dance. In- 
stead, he spat deliberately and resumed his anvil 
chorus. 

"Take 'em into the settin'-room, Taylor; I'll be 
along directly," was all that he said. Lewis and I 
looked at each other in a dazed sort of way; then, in 
silence and without enthusiasm, we followed the 
Englishman. 

He led us into a large room which had in it a 
table, a lounge, a few chairs, and some pictures. There 
was not a Moorish article in it — it was plain New 
England from ceiling to floor. I sat down on the 
lounge and dived into a pile of magazines, curious to 
see how the old exile amused himself in this out-of- 
the-way place. The first that I saw gave me a shock; 
it was the one that I had been helping to make for 
the last two years! Two other American magazines 
were in the bunch and then I came to a trade-paper 
which I had once edited. I began to feel at home. 

Then the old captain sauntered in. Miffed by his 
air of utter indifference, we began to reach for our 
hats after a few commonplace remarks that stuck in 
our throats. To our surprise, Captain Cobb would 




GENERAL D'AMADE, THE FIGHTER OF CASABLANCA 



TAYLOR, CROSS, COBB, LEWIS, AT CASABLANCA 



CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 163 

not listen to any talk of farewell — we were going to 
stay for dinner! He expressed a vigorous opinion re- 
garding Americans who would think of leaving his 
house without eating with him ! 

Little by little the old man thawed out. In a vo- 
cabulary whose picturesque profanity has never been 
surpassed on sea or land — or in the United States 
Senate — he entertained us with reminiscences of the 
home-land, with incidents that he witnessed during 
the bombardment of Casablanca, and with stories of 
the sea. Hours passed before we again reached for 
our hats, and he reached for his, also. He insisted 
vipon closing up his mill and escorting us all about 
the town. 

Standing together on the beach, we invited the old 
hermit to come home and see the subways and the 
forty-story buildings — and the old New England hills. 
He shook his head and pointed to the old mill. 

" I reckon I'll weather it out here/' he answered. 

Captain Cobb is not an enthusiast on the subject 
of uplifting the Moors. He dropped that idea long 
ago as the result of an effort to revolutionize 
agriculture in the fertile wheat region back of 
Casablanca. 

Seeing that the Moors merely scratched the earth 
with the one-handled wooden ploughs of the ancients, 
after first cutting the weeds with a small sickle, the 
Captain sent to Chicago for a real plough. A wealthy 
Moor readily granted permission for a " show " on his 
estate. The plough was hauled out into the country, 



164 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

and the Captain selected a spot where the weeds were 
so thick and tall that no native plough could ever get 
through. Taking the handles himself, he soon had 
every weed neatly turned under ; the wondering Moors 
were enthusiastic and Cobb began to see visions of fat 
commissions on shiploads of ploughs. Finally, the 
owner of the field asked the price. The captain told 
him — a sum equal to $io plus the cost of transporta- 
tion and a small profit. The Moor threw up his hands 
in one of those expressive Oriental gestures and si- 
lently walked away. The Captain dragged his steel 
plough back to Casablanca — but not in silence! You 
may see it there in his warehouse to-day. Thus ended 
the story of one American uplift. 



XI 
WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 

I STEAMED hopefully into the Canaries as a first- 
class passenger on a Royal Mail packet. I steamed 
despondently out as a deck-passenger on a Ham- 
burg cargo-boat, stretched out on a greasy tarpaulin. 
But why hurry away from the Half-way House to the 
West Coast of Africa? 

Whether outward-bound or homeward, whether 
four-funnelled cruiser or three-masted schooner, 
whether flying the Jack that flaps in all the sea-winds 
or flying the crew's weekly wash — you put in at 
Teneriffe or Las Palmas if you are in the West Coast 
trade. The Madeiras may be prettier and the Cape 
Verdes wickeder, but the Canaries are busier. If cer- 
tain gentlemen at Washington in 1898 had known 
more of the geography that is learned from a ship's 
deck, we might have annexed something Atlantic that 
is better than Porto Rico. We should also have an- 
nexed the vexatious problem of bull-fighting, which 
might have drawn attention away from the harems of 
that good American citizen, the Sultan of Jolo and 
Sulu. 

It is too much to say that the Spaniard cannot live 
without his bull-fight. He can, if he must, but much 

165 



166 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

of the joy of living is gone. It is true that a goat- 
fight might be more exciting, but goats recall none of 
the thrills once enjoyed in old Madrid. And how can 
there be a toreador without a tor of 

And so, there in the Canaries, southwest of Mo- 
rocco — on an island which was created as part of 
Africa, but which (through American oversight) is 
politically a part of Spain — Teneriffe celebrated my 
arrival by killing four bulls. At least, the two events 
happened on the same Sunday. 

A bull-fight in Teneriffe is not an everyday event. 
It is more like grand opera, or a horse-show, or a Yale- 
Harvard football game. The rarity of the spectacle 
is not due to lack of enthusiasmi, but to the cost of 
'' pulling off the show." Cattle of all kinds are ex- 
pensive there, even a burro selling for as much as 
$40; and the kind of a gentleman who is willing to 
play tag with the horns of a bull, and who is agile 
enough to do stunts that will make the audience get 
upon its feet and yell, also costs money. To repro- 
duce one of the Madrid fights would cost about $3,000 
there, and the box-office would have to go in mourn- 
ing for a year. So Teneriffe does the best that it can 
afford- — and for an African island that best is fair 
to middling. They at least import the bulls and the 
fighters from Spain. 

The Plaza de Toros, located at one side of the city, 
is a circular structure of concrete about three stories 
high, with exits all around. In the centre is a circular 
arena of level sand, with a surrounding fence just low 



WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 167 

enough for a toreador to scramble over when hard 
pressed — if not too hard pressed. There are also a 
number of small places of refuge near the fence, and 
they frequently come in handy. The seats of the am- 
phitheatre rise in tiers to the roof that shields a part 
of the audience from the sun. Even a December sun 
is something to keep away from in Teneriffe. The 
seats cost from twenty to seventy-five cents, American. 

The Tenerifhans began to flock to the Plaza de 
Toros at 2 :30 in the afternoon, in the same fashion 
as Americans turning out for " the greatest show on 
earth." The small boy was much in evidence, and 
a large number of them would have been glad of a 
chance to carry water for the bulls. The red trousers, 
blue blouses, and vari-coloured caps of Spanish sol- 
diers were almost as numerous, and they gave a pleas- 
ing touch of colour to the spectacle. Now and then 
dashed up a carriage with sefioras and senoritas — 
fully conscious of the effect of black eyes and hair 
against the background of a fluffy white mantilla. In 
front of the Plaza were the peanut- woman, the man 
with wine for the thirsty, and the boy with the in- 
evitable gambling-wheel. At one side were the carts 
waiting to haul off the carcasses — a guarantee that 
the show would be real. 

The amphitheatre has a large seating capacity and 
was not more than half-filled, so the sunny side was 
almost empty. The small boy was in the " loft," as 
usual, and he cared not who knew it. Most of the 
spectators were men, but enough ladies were present 
to make it a society event. Even little girls of six 



168 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

were present. Instead of having a depressing effect 
upon the ladies, the gory spectacle that followed so 
aroused their enthusiasm that at times they stood up 
in order not to miss anything. In the audience was 
a cohort of police armed with carbines — evidently on 
passes — and about twenty Red Cross men to minister 
to the bruises of six toreadores. 

Promptly at three, the band struck up a lively air 
and the audience began to stretch its neck. Nothing 
happened. Eventually it played another selection, 
and then a trumpet in the key of high C was sounded. 
The gates were thrown open and a very ordinary 
young man rode in on an ordinary horse. Nobody got 
excited. He rode across the arena and saluted some- 
body up near the roof — evidently the owner of the 
show — and rode back again. Then another trumpet 
and the young man appeared again. This time he 
was more welcome, for he led the grand march of 
toreadores, resplendent in the traditional costume of 
the Madrid ring, which one may more conveniently 
see at the opera " Carmen." The six fighters in red, 
green, yellow, purple, and gold lace were followed by 
three white mules hitched abreast; it is theirs to drag 
away the toro when his little fight is over. 

The toreadores saluted, took off a part of their 
raiment and threw it into the audience, where it was 
eagerly seized by the idolizers of the sport. The men 
had plenty of colour and gold lace left, however. Then 
the real show began. 

Act I, Scene i. The bugle-man sounded again and 



WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 169 

the gates of the bull-pen were thrown open. There 
was a moment of suspense, and then Toro No. i ap- 
peared — a black-and-white animal looking like a Texas 
steer, with long, curved horns, keen as a dagger. He 
had the air of a bull looking for trouble — and he was 
not long in finding it. 

The six toreadores shook out their brilliant cloaks 
and advanced toward the centre. The bull took a good 
look at one and made for him; another stepped in 
and threw his cloak over the animal's eyes and dis- 
concerted him. First one and then another played 
tag with him in this way for twenty minutes, and the 
toro began to tire. Had he kept straight on after 
one man, he would have caught him, but he usually 
made one lunge and stopped. Finally, the bugle an- 
nounced a change of scene. 

Scene 2. Two of the teasers (the two matador es or 
killers) withdrew, and a young man in black came 
out with a couple of banderillas for each of two 
picador es. These banderillas are sharp darts with 
handles about two feet long, wrapped in green and 
yellow tissue-paper. The two men without darts then 
resumed the game of tag, while the picadores awaited 
a favourable moment for maddening the toro by stick- 
ing the darts into him. To one who likes this part 
of the game, it is fine sport; personally I should not 
care for it. When the auspicious moment arrived, one 
of the picadores stepped in front of the bull, at a dis- 
tance of ten feet, and invited him to come on. The 
bull accepted the invitation, with horns lowered. The 
picador stood perfectly still until the animal was 



170 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

within reach, then leaned over the sharp horns and 
thrust the darts into his shoulder — at the same instant 
springing to one side. The enraged bull bellowed and 
ran around the arena in the effort to shake off the 
darts, while the hardened audience roared. Then 
came another round of tag and the incident was re- 
peated when the second picador inserted his banderil- 
las. When the audience began to lose interest, the 
bugle announced another change. 

Scene j. The two picadores retired and one of the 
matadores took his place, a long, sharp sword con- 
cealed under his cloak. There were several minutes 
of teasing by the others, and then the matador took 
a hand. Waving his cloak on his left side, he slowly 
advanced and pointed his sword directly at the bull's 
left shoulder. The animal lunged at the cloak and the 
sword went to the hilt; the beast staggered, stopped, 
then sank to the ground; the sword had penetrated 
the heart. 

Scene 4. An attendant came up and grasped the 
dying toro by the horns while the matador thrust an- 
other sword into the spinal cord, just back of the 
horns. The attendant finished the work with a dag- 
ger, the white mules dashed in, and the limp carcass 
was dragged through the gate. The audience wildly 
cheered and threw cigarettes to its hero. 

Act II. The second bull was a brown fellow, full 
of fight, and he kept everybody busy. The teasing 
went on in the same way, but one of the teasers looked 
like " a goner " at one turn. He was knocked down, 
but another toreador stepped in at the right moment. 



WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 171 

When the kilhng time came, a young matador came 
out with the sword. He appeared to be nervous, for 
the animal was very active; half-a-dozen times he pre- 
pared to thrust, and each time the bull went away 
with his enemy's cloak. Finally the audience became 
disgusted and began to blow little whistles — evidently 
Spanish for "give him the hook!" The young fel- 
low braced up and went at the toro again; this 
time he succeeded in putting in the sword, but 
it was some time before the animal was actually 
killed. 

Act III. Toro No. 3 was also brown, but not so 
full of fight. He looked frightened when he entered 
and ran around the fence as if seeking a place marked 
" Exit." But when he saw a gentleman in green and 
gold coming toward him with a long pole, he braced 
up. Then a surprising thing happened. When the 
bull was only a few feet away, the toreador placed 
one end of the pole on the ground and vaulted high 
into the air. His intention was to vault over the 
animal, but there was some miscalculation and he 
landed squarely between his horns. The toro lowered 
his head and the man fell backward, at the beast's 
mercy. For a moment, it looked as though he were 
being gored, but the intervention of another teaser 
saved him. The man was thoroughly " game " and 
went on with his vaulting a few minutes later. 
This feature so frightened the bull that he tried to 
jump the fence into the audience, and almost suc- 
ceeded. The cruel darts maddened him a little, 
but it was a relief to the spectators when the mata- 



172 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

dor struck his sword in the right spot at the first 
effort. 

Act IV. The bull that was ushered in to close this 
bloody show was so small and thin that a hack-driver 
in the audience almost turned the tragedy into a comedy. 
Springing over the fence into the arena, he held up his 
cap to the manager of the show as a request for per- 
mission to take part in it himself. He must have re- 
ceived it, for he played about the bull's horns with 
nothing in his hands and came near making the 
tore ad ores out to be fakirs. Then he tried to take 
the darts from one of them, but the man held on until 
the hackman gave up and resumed his seat. 

Another Buttinski, the young attendant in black, 
decided that he also would get gay with the bull, but 
when the toreadores teased the animal away from him, 
the young fellow's black suit was ready for the rag- 
picker. The calf-like toro then chased one of the 
teasers over the fence and tore a big hole in his nice 
trousers while he was in transit. 

The last scene was particularly brutal, for the bull 
was very tenacious of life. The sword-man missed his 
aim and struck back of the shoulder on the right side. 
Though the sword was buried to its hilt in its body, 
the poor creature kept up the fight for fifteen minutes. 
This gave one of the fighters a chance for a very dar- 
ing performance; watching for the right moment, he 
grasped the sword-hilt and pulled out the blade, get- 
ting a rip from one horn as he did so. The matador 
then succeeded in getting the sword into the left side, 
but even that failed to kill. When the animal finally 



WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 173 

fell, men and boys leaped over the fence and dragged 
the carcass away with their hands. 

Leaving the ethics of bull-fighting out of the ques- 
tion, it was a square game all the way through. Every 
man in it had a good chance of being killed, over and 
over again; just why two or three were not disabled 
is a mystery, but I am assured that they wear no chain 
armour. At any rate, the boy in black was not pre- 
pared for what happened to him. 

The Tenerifife morning paper gave scant notice to 
the fight and closed with this " roast " : " The torea- 
dores did what they could. The occurrence was regu- 
lar." While I am not an authority on bull-fighting, 
I should say that the men deserved better praise. If 
Teneriffe has anything to show that is more than 
" regular," I should like an invitation. 

The meat of the animals slaughtered in a bull-fight 
is supposed to go to the poor, but I had questioning 
thoughts at the hotel on Monday, when I saw beef- 
steak on the bill-of-fare." 

If the going down of the sun finds you in Las 
Palmas, there are many attractive spots where you 
may stroll and be lonesome; but if the gloaming 
catches you in TenerifTe, there is only the Plaza that 
overlooks the bay. Here, if you loiter long enough, 
you will see everybody in Teneriffe except those who 
are in jail or sick a-bed, for this is the evening parade- 
ground for the 40,000 Spaniards who live between the 
blue sea and the chain of lofty peaks. It is an unsafe 



174 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

place to go if you owe money to anybody in the island, 
but if you have no creditors to dodge it is the glad- 
dest spot in the city. 

On certain evenings a fine military band blows it- 
self red in the face; but, band or no band, the beauty 
and the chivalry of the port may be found promenading 
up and down the rectangular '' square " or reviewing 
the parade from benches on the side. Juanita is here, 
fresh from the hair-dresser, in a gown made in Paris, 
with a white mantilla draped gracefully over her 
black hair. But, alas! mama is also here; likewise 
little sister; likewise papa, somewhere within easy 
range. You may camp here for a week without ever 
seeing Francisco sitting on a plaza bench with his 
arm around her; ''no se permite'' in Las Canarias! 
But Juanita knows how to use her eyes, and if she 
wills it that Francisco shall tell her in Castillian the 
story that is old in all languages, she will hear 
it from her window before the ancient cathedral bell 
strikes ten. 

There is nothing in the climate of the Canaries to 
prevent the course of true love from running along 
smoothly, but the Spanish traditions are so strong that 
it has a more bumpety-bump time than in any other 
city beneath the African sun. That ancient system of 
love-making at long distance is in full force. Let us 
follow Francisco and see what happens — for we may 
observe everything that happens. 

Shortly after Juanita and her vigilant family have 
disappeared up the stairway that leads to their apart- 



WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 175 

ments over papa's tienda, Francisco saunters along the 
sidewalk. He stops in front of the house and pa- 
tiently waits. If no dark eyes appear at the window 
above, he softly whistles a signal note until he '' gets 
the number." 

But Juanita does not invite him to '' run up''; that 
cannot be until he is ready to be fitted to the bridal 
harness. Whatever he wishes to say must be said from 
the sidewalk, with the back of his head resting on his 
own shoulder. But, in spite of the drawbacks to the 
system, it is on record that weddings occur in Tene- 
riffe about as frequently as in any other city of 40,- 
000 people. It might not work so well in New York, 
however — especially with Flossie on the sixth floor, 
front. 

From Juanita's standpoint (or sitting-point) the 
arrangement has many conveniences. If her corns 
happen to be painful, she can slip off her shoes, for 
Francisco's horizon does not extend below the waist- 
line. All that is really necessary is that her hair be 
dressed, her face powdered, and her waist clean. 

From Francisco's standpoint, there are also some 
advantages in the system. Since he must do his woo- 
ing from the sidewalk, it is obvious that all rival 
suitors must do the same. By standing on the corner 
when not on duty, or by carelessly passing along the 
street, he can see at a glance who is beneath the win- 
dow — and how often. 

From the neighbour's viewpoint, it is a system par 
excellence. By leaning out and looking up and down 
the street, an observant fem.ale can see every wooer 



176 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

within the range of four blocks; by exchanging notes 
with a senora in the next street, her stock of knowl- 
edge is doubled. And so on, indefinitely. There are 
not many weddings in Teneriffe or Las Palmas that 
do not cast their shadows in advance. 

But the system is death to the ice-cream parlour and 
the moving-picture show. 



xn 

THE LOG OF A DECK-PASSENGER 

NEVER mind how it happened. That an Ameri- 
can traveller should " go broke " in a foreign 
land is not an experience so uncommon that 
an eager public yearns for the details. During August, 
19 lo, 4,019 Americans returned to New York as 
steerage-passengers — and they had been no farther 
from home than Europe. These ladies and gentlemen 
were in the steerage *' because all the other accommo- 
dations had been taken," of course, but I was a deck- 
passenger because I was " strapped." 

Lt is a serious matter to land anywhere on the West 
Coast of Africa without money. It is bad enough 
to be stranded on a white man's coast in a temperate 
zone, where you have no African fever to think about; 
to "go broke " on the West Coast may mean that you 
will never come out. 

Therefore, I spent several days at Teneriffe in seri- 
ous reflection, pondering this " if " and that " per- 
haps." I had permission to cable for money to return 
home, but not for cash to go on. On Christmas Eve 
I decided to face whatever fate might be lying in wait 
for me on the out-trail. Then I drew up a will, wrote 
some letters, and packed my trunk. 

177 



178 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

My next port was to be Dakar, in French West Af- 
rica. I made the rounds of the steamship offices, but 
the second-cabin fare was $5 more than I possessed 
and none of them would sell a third-class ticket. Fi- 
nally I found a young German who offered me deck- 
passage on a cargo-boat nearly due. I did not know 
what " deck-passage " was, but it was evidently some- 
thing that would land me in the Senegal. 

" How much? " I asked. 

" Fifteen dollars, including meals." 

"Gimme it quick!" I said, and he gimme it. I 
went out with a ticket and ten jingling dollars left for 
a campaign in West Africa. 

Christmas in Teneriffe is not an experience that I 
ever wish to repeat. A traveller who finds himself 
suddenly '' broke " is not in a festive mood, and Tene- 
riffe is not a hilarious town. Everything seemed to 
go wrong all at once. A cablegram that I wanted did 
not come; two letters came that I did not want; the 
American consul invited me to eat Christmas dinner 
with him — and then forgot it! I celebrated alone, 
therefore — very much alone. Then I made myself a 
Christmas present of a ticket to the bull-fight and has- 
tened to the Plaza de Toros. The last act interested 
me. A very young matador had tried three times to 
thrust his sword through the bull's hide as it charged 
him; but the hide was so tough that it doubled the 
blade up as though it were a bamboo cane. Then the 
young fellow's nerve broke down and he turned half- 
appealingly to the audience. The spectators voted 



THE LOG OF A DECK-PASSENGER 179 

that he should play the game to the end, and I thought 
that I knew how he felt. He braced up and played 
it through; the next lunge won. 

It was New Year's Eve when I saw my rusty 
freighter creeping into the harbour. It was so laden 
with cargo that the ordinary waves splashed up on 
the main deck. Two hours later a longshoreman was 
hauling me aboard the Walhurg like a bale of hay, 
and my baggage also had the good luck to get over 
the rail. 

There was not a white man in sight ; everybody was 
busy forward with cargo. I lit my pipe, sat down on 
the hatch in the broiling sun, and waited for some- 
thing to happen. From this point, let us follow 
the log: 

First Day 

Enter a chunky, cheerful German (Second-Mate Hummel); 
he sees me, looks at my two steamer trunks and suit-case as if 
they had dropped from the clouds. " Are you a passenger ? " he 
asks. "No, I am a deck-passenger." That doesn't seem to 
make any difference; says that he will send the Chief-Mate to 
me. Exit. 

Enter Chief-Officer Schmidt, good-looking Hamburger but 
rather stern. Is as courteous as if I had the best ticket that 
the company sells. He takes my ticket, shows me the cook's 
door, and tells me to go and get my "grub." "Where do I 
sleep? " I ask. " Better see the Captain." 

The Chef is a cheerful chap and has a Kroo-boy apprentice 
named George. George gives me a plate of pea-soup; there is 
no table, so I sit on a dirty tarpaulin. Chef rinses the plate and 
fills it with corned-beef, boiled potato, kraut, and stewed apples. 



180 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

The last course was alleged coffee. I feel like a sailor " before 
the mast," but am glad to be here. 

Sailed out of Teneriffe at 5 p.m. without seeing anything that 
looks like a Captain. Third-Officer Mutschink looks like his 
name but is a jolly good fellow. "Where do I sleep?" I ask. 
" See the Captain," he answers. " He'll fix you up." 

Saw the Captain, and he fixed me up ! Found him in his 
cabin — middle-aged, fat, red-faced, and in pink pajamas. I ex- 
plain that I am, of necessity, a deck-passenger — and where shall I 
sleep ? " Oh, anywhere you like ! " he answers. I linger a mo- 
ment. " I have no place ! " he snaps out, impatiently. 

New Year's Eve in Las Palmas harbour. Dinner consisted of 
lukewarm coffee and two bologna sandwiches a la tarpaulin. 
Burned tobacco until late, wondering what next. Rolled up in 
my army-blanket and lay down on the hatch. The stars are very 
pretty, and there is a brilliant moon. The mainmast and the 
huge derricks are swaying like dead pines in a storm, as the 
Walhurg sways with the tide. 

Midnight — January first ! The gong sounds eight bells and a 
dozen steamers start their whistles; some of the sailors are 
beating on tin ; the crew of the British gunboat try to sing but 
are too drunk; they quit after an hour's effort to sing. 

Have just discovered that my blanket is already wet with dew. 
I move back under a tarpaulin. This deck is certainly of hard- 
wood; have never felt boards so hard. Sleep is impossible; I 
know, for I have tried for three hours. Will sit up and burn 
tobacco until daylight. 

Second Day 

New Year's Day in Las Palmas, discharging cargo. Every- 
body working hard, except Captain Fleuter. British gunboat 
went out dipping its flag — to Las Palmas or to the British 
merchantmen ? 

Another passenger has come aboard — also of the deck variety. 
He is Andreas Catsudas, Greek, late cook at the Premier diamond 



THE LOG OF A DECK-PASSENGER 181 

mines. Left Capetown for the Congo and had to come all the 
way to Las Palmas to get a ship ! Silent, dull-witted, badly down 
in the mouth. 

Sailed at 9:30 p.m. Found some matting to sleep on. It is 
full of fleas but they are the smallest of my troubles. Shaved 
by moonlight, without a mirror ; not so easy as you might think ! 

Grub was on the bum to-day. Mutschink, who is boss of the 
grub-house, slipped me an apple and an onion. May his tribe 
increase ! 

A cold, hard, sleepless night. Glad to see it end. Things begin 
to happen on this boat about 4:30 a.m. 

Third Day 

Lemon-yellow sunrise; windy. Breakfast of macaroni, with 
tiny cubes of bacon and potatoes. Crew cleaning ship, which 
certainly needs it. Awning is being stretched to keep the sun 
from pulling the caulking out of the deck. 

Lunched on Hamburger steak (genuine but tainted), pancake, 
and jam. Catsudas can't see the joke of life on this ship; doesn't 
like to eat without a table. Captain wobbles about the ship occa- 
sionally, but the other officers run the boat. Speed, 200 miles a 
day. Am getting chummy with Hummel and Mutschink. They 
work like niggers. 

Moved my matting into a life-boat and made an awning out 
of my poncho. Catsudas is in the other end of my " stateroom." 
Mutschink insists upon lending me an extra blanket ; it gets very 
cold at night. The ribs of the life-boat do not exactly fit into 
the spaces between my ribs! 

Fourth Day 

Windy and cloudy. Captain came down on Mutschink like a 
tornado because he let the steward have too much cheese. We 
are fifty or sixty miles off-shore, steaming southward. 

Harmattan wind blowing strong off the Sahara. Could not 
believe that the " fog " was sand-dust until it began to settle on 



182 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

my clothes. Big dragon-fly, blown out to sea, has been flying 
around the ship all day. We take soundings every hour now. 

Hummel gave me another blanket. While the sun shines, it is 
August; after sunset it is December. 

Fifth Day 

No sun until 3 p.m. Harmattan strong and chilly. Poncho 
keeps the dust out of my eyes when sleeping in my " stateroom." 

Mutschink told me at night the story of his life on the high 
seas. Catsudas, the Greek, walked the deck and told me all about 
the siege of Troy. I let him think that it was news. 

Sixth Day 

Plenty of sun and wind but very little dust, so we must be 
south of the Sahara. Mutschink is in disgrace because he failed 
to see the lights of a distant steamer last night. Captain's eagle 
eye caught them and he went up and " cussed " Mutschink off the 
bridge ; will probably " fire " him when he gets back to Hamburg. 

Crew busy getting Senegal cargo up on deck. Fished up a 
narrow-gauge railroad — rails, ties, trucks, cars, everything except 
the locomotive. Also pulled up tons of lumber, scores of cases 
of Standard oil, and a few quarts of liquor. Deck looks like the 
morning after Christmas. 

Catsudas and I are slowly recovering from nervous prostration. 
When they moved our surf-boat and uncovered the hatch, we 
discovered that we had been peacefully sleeping above twenty 
tons of dynamite ! We have unanimously agreed to change our 
" stateroom." 

Peculiar sunset : blood-red sun on one side of the boat and 
reddish full-moon on the other. Hard to tell which is the other. 

And so the log goes on for the two weeks that I 
spent on the IValhurg. The despondency of Catsudas 




CATSUDAS IN OUR WALBURG ■■ STATEK00:M 




HUMMEL AND THE DYNAMITE BENEATH IT 



THE LOG OF A DECK-PASSENGER 183 

never lifted; the frigid atmosphere that enveloped the 
Captain never thawed; the Chef's menu improved not; 
but the real friendship of the three junior officers made 
life worth the living, even for a deck-passenger. 
Every night, during the pause between work and more 
work, they sent for me that I might share the few 
luxuries that a West-Coast freighter provides. Hum- 
mel and Mutschink were quartered in a tiny cabin, 
but they discovered that a third could bunk therein, 
and they refused to hear my objections. They were 
royal fellows and, if there be such a place as a sailors' 
heaven, the Second and Third Officers of the Walhurg 
will get in. 

It is a hard life that they live along what they call 
*' the rottenest coast in the world." Up at 5 a.m., 
they toil with cargo under an awful sun from daylight 
until dark, sometimes not stopping for lunch. Then 
one must take the bridge while the other sits far into 
the night over bills-of-lading. It is also a life of con- 
stant peril, for that entire coast is strewn with the 
wrecks of steamers; I counted five near one cape. 
There is also the peril of African fever on top of the 
peril of handling dangerous cargo. A nervous winch- 
man may '' let go " too soon, for instance. 

A Kroo-boy at the winch did " let go " when the 
Walhurg was off Sekondi, loading mahogany. A log 
weighing many tons crashed to the deck and flattened 
Hummel's ankle out like a pancake. They took him 
ashore to the hospital; the British army surgeon took 
one look at the ankle and began to get out his saw. 
But Hummel said "' aher nicht! " If one foot had to 



184 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

remain on the Gold Coast, he would stay with it. 
Four months later he took both feet back to Ham- 
burg, convalesced a little more, and shipped again for 
the West Coast. 

" Some day I meet that nigger ! " he said ominously. 

The Germans are taking the seas away from the 
British — no doubt about that. Everybody knows that 
the Liverpool boats had a monopoly of the West Coast 
trade a few years ago. Look at the latest authoritative 
figures that I have been able to obtain : 

German Trade With West Africa 



Colony— 1908 

British West Africa 

French West Africa 

Belgian Congo 

Liberian Republic 

Portuguese West Africa 
German West Africa . . . 

Total, 1908 



Imports 
therefrom 


Exports 
thereto 


$13,804,000 
2,070,600 
2,665,600 
452,200 
2,522.800 
3,443,146 


$2,784,600 
595,000 
238.000 
285,600 
833,000 
5,483,520 


$24,958,346 


$10,219,720 



It is a significant fact that in the colonies belonging 
to neither Britain nor France, the Hamburgers are 
overhauling the British or have left them astern. Eng- 
land is yet ahead in French West Africa. Manchester 
sends more goods to the Congo, but the Germans carry 
away a much greater quanity of raw exports. In the 
Liberian ports, there are two German flags to every 
British flag. Nearly all of the cacao beans of Portu- 
guese West Africa (its chief product) go to Germany. 



THE LOG OF A DECK-PASSENGER 185 

And in their own colonies the Hamburg boats have 
almost a monopoly. 

More significant yet is the German gain in British 
West Africa. Manchester goods are yet far ahead, 
but more of the exports go to Germany than to the 
United Kingdom. Again and again have I seen a 
homeward-bound German low in the water, with bar- 
rels of palm-oil lashed to the rail all over the deck, 
while an Elder-Dempster boat just ahead was riding 
high, with no cargo overflowing its hatches. In South 
Africa the story is the same, according to this state- 
ment from a recent financial supplement to the Lon- 
don Times: 

"The steady increase in the German share of the trade is 
the most noteworthy development of recent years. Since 1908 
Germany has left the United States behind and is now second 
only to the United Kingdom in the South African market." 

I learned the reasons while I was a deck-passenger 
on the rusty old Walhnrg: The German is winning on 
the seas because he deserves to win. Everybody likes 
him, including the Africans, because he is sociable; 
and they hold their cargo until he comes along. He 
does not require that the traders who deal with him 
shall learn his language; for example, nearly every 
member of the Walhurg's crew spoke English. The 
German is also far ahead of the Briton in his method 
of handling cargo — at least, so far as my experience 
on five steamers goes. Long before we sighted a port, 
the Walhurg had the cargo for that port on deck, 
surf-boats ready, and the launch under steam. Be- 



186 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

fore the anchor hit the bottom, the small boats were 
being lowered. When loaded, the launch pulled them 
to the landing and came back for more. On the home- 
ward cruise the process was reversed. The officers 
spared neither themselves nor their crew so long as 
there was cargo to load or unload. It was the Ham- 
burg method — and it impressed me more forcibly than 
even the huckleberry soup. 

Travelling one day on an Elder-Dempster freighter, 
commanded by a profane but jovial Irishman and 
with a big-hearted Irish purser (green is your mem- 
ory, Harty!), I listened to the reading of the Riot 
Act in the office of the Company's local agent, who 
was also an important merchant. 

'' Tell the people in Liverpool," he said, " that if 
they want me to hold the business here, they must give 
better service. Look how long I have been waiting for 
you to come ! Look at my warehouse : all that palm- 
oil must be sent out to the ship at my expense. If 
I w^ere shipping to Hamburg, I would have nothing 
to do but point it out." 

"Why don't you write to the Company?" asked 
the Captain. 

" I have written until I am tired. I told 'em in my 
last letter that, if they don't wake up, their business 
on this coast is going to hell ! " 

I sat at meat with the Irishmen that night, aboard 
their boat. As we filled our pipes, the Captain re- 
marked, with never a sign of regret : 

" In ten years, England will be a Germany colony ! " 



XIII 
THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN 

LIBREVILLE, the capital of the French Congo, 
. may be hotter than I found Dakar, the capital 
of French West Africa, on a January after- 
noon; if so, that should be a good market for asbestos 
helmets. Moreover, His Britannic Majesty's Vice- 
Consul-General was as hot as the weather, for he was 
telling me how the French had spoiled the Senegal 
Negroes. 

" Why," he said, " if you hit a nigger here — no 
matter what he has said or done to you — you go to 
jail! I tried it once — the time a native knocked out 
this tooth — ^and I know ! " 

I didn't hit any of the Senegalese to test the matter, 
but I saw enough to convince me that the French- 
man is a great colonizer of the Blacks — at least, from 
the standpoint of one who knows the American Negro 
from intimate acquaintance and believes that the race 
has possibilities. 

The atmosphere in the harbour of Rufisque also was 
hot and full of swear-words, but this time they were 
German. A Hamburg captain and two of his officers 
were saying very unkind things about Frenchmen in 
general and Senegal Frenchmen in particular. It was 

187 



188 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

all because the Hamburger wanted to work the native 
stevedores until midnight, so that he might get rid of 
his cargo and sail away; but the natives insisted upon 
a twelve-hour day, and not a man would work after 
sunset for the love of the Germans or for money. 
And nobody could '' bully " them into doing so, for 
there was the French Government. 

Months afterward I listened to another man — a 
Liberian, this time — whose comments on French rule 
were full of bitterness. His particular grievance was 
a law in the Ivory Coast colony (French) requiring 
every village to set out a specified number of cocoa- 
plants — a cruel wrong, as he saw it. To force a native 
to raise a crop (and cocoa requires scarcely any real 
work) was an outrage against the Bill of Rights. He 
left me under the impression that the French Negroes 
were being ground under an iron heel. 

After a brief visit to the Frenchmen on the Ivory 
Coast job, I journeyed inland for about two hundred 
miles along the big river that separates that colony 
from Liberia. With me was the Liberian Commis- 
sioner for that district, and in one of the Liberian vil- 
lages a native came with a palaver against the French. 
His woman had run away, he said, and was on the 
French side of the river. She refused to come back, 
and he wanted the Commissioner to go over and fetch 
her. 

The official gave the native and his neighbours a 
little common-sense talk about treating their wives in 
such a way that they would not run away to the French 
villages, and then he dismissed the petitioner. 



THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN 189 

" It is always the same story," he said. " I hear 
a lot of talk about the way the French governors treat 
their natives, but I have noticed that nobody complains 
about the Ivory Coasters running away. If they don't 
like it over there, all that they have to do is to paddle 
across in their canoes — but they don't." 

I have seen a good many types of Negroes — West 
Indians, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Germans, Arabs, Li- 
berians, Americo-Liberians, Sierra Leonese, Gold 
Coasters, and a few thousand Americans — with diverse 
civilizations superimposed upon a temperament that is 
eternally the same. Next to the American, I prefer 
the French Negro. Everybody knows how quickly 
the coloured man '^ catches on " to the styles and the 
manners of those whom he (or she) recognizes as his 
superiors : the French Negro has far outstripped the 
Arab Frenchman in acquiring the ways and manners 
of his overlords. I have a vivid remembrance of an 
apparition that passed before my eyes one evening in 
a hinterland village. Five young natives sauntered 
by in tailor-made suits, straw-hats, collars, neckties, 
and tennis-shoes — this in a town where even the king 
wore only a strip of cloth. 

I looked the town over the next day and saw noth- 
ing of them; in the gloaming, however, they appeared 
again — each of them arrayed in pajamas! I sent an 
interpreter to inquire if they were boys from a mission 
school. Not at all. They were uneducated bushmen — 
but they had been working as deck-hands up and down 
the coast on a French cargo-boat! 



190 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Once, in the Liberian bush, I stumbled upon a mili- 
tary outpost, and the sergeant was so exceptionally 
anxious to be obliging that I asked him about himself. 
I found that he had spent a term of years in the 
Senegalese Frontier Force — and that explained the 
difference. 

France has sent an exceptionally good type of men 
into its African colonies — men who put their hearts 
into their work. They are also trained men — trained 
specifically for their task — and they have less of " the 
deathless pride of race " than the Anglo-Saxons. 
Certainly they are more tactful than the British colonial 
officials, and this quality of mind gets results in a 
land whose people are merely grown-up children. 
They rule the land firmly, but lightly; the soldier is 
everywhere, but he is generally a native soldier. The 
policy and the tactics that have proved successful in 
Arab Africa are working also in Black Man's Africa. 

French West Africa is itself an empire — an empire 
that would make twenty-five states like Kentucky. 
It comprises five distinct colonies (Senegal, Upper 
Senegal and Niger, French Guinea, Ivory Coast, and 
Dahomey) and one protectorate; yet they are gov- 
ernmentally a unit and are ruled from Dakar by one 
man, with a lieutenant-governor over each. 

The military regime in this part of Africa was 
brief and decisive and not marked by ruthless slaugh- 
ter; the whole area is now policed by a civil govern- 
ment with less than 10,000 soldiers, three-fourths of 
them being natives. The annual budget is close to 




THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN AT RUFISQUE 



THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN 191 

$10,000,000 but the mother country pays about a 
third of it. 

The population (estimated at ten milHons) is a 
mixture of many kinds of browns and blacks, for the 
Moors and Arabs filter down from the north. About 
seven or eight millions are Mohammedans — which 
means that the great markets are thronged with na- 
tives who wear more clothes than the climate actually 
requires, for the Mussulman loves a long robe and a 
distinctive headpiece. These details are reflected in 
the commercial statistics; France sells about $6,000,000 
worth of cotton goods to them every year. Peanuts 
and other products from which oils can be squeezed 
are the chief money-crops. You may see little moun- 
tains of peanuts piled up at Rufisque for shipment to 
European oil-mills. Here is an " oil " country that 
is not dominated by '' the Standard " — but I saw 
plenty of cases of " Standard " going in under a 
French label. 

Senegal (formerly Senegambia) is the official centre 
of this vast West Coast empire. It has about a mil- 
lion and a half of people and is represented in the 
French Parliament by a full-fledged Deputy. He is 
elected by the ballots of the " communes " of Goree, 
Dakar, Rufisque, and St. Louis, where the natives are 
citizens of France and therefore allowed to vote. 
There are about 5,000 real Frenchmen in the Senegal, 
for most of the government offices are there. Here 
are the four principal cities: (i) Goree, population 
2,000, on an island just outside the harbour of Dakar. 



192 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

(2) Dakar, the capital of the five colonies; it is an at- 
tractive city of 25,000, clean and well-planned, with 
electricity, ice, and waterworks. Its crowning glories 
are the GkDvernor-General's palace and magnificent 
docks. (3) Rufisque, with 13,000, just across the 
bay. It is a busy port and has narrow-gauge tracks 
running from the docks through the principal streets; 
these are for trucks pushed by hand. (4) St. Louis, 
a picturesque city of 25,000, with " all modern im- 
provements"; it is the water-gate to the Upper 
Senegal. 

The transportation problem has been handled in a 
masterful way. Four regular steamship lines from 
France, one from Liverpool, and one from Hamburg 
serve the ports. A railroad and a river and another 
railroad and another river are the links of a trans- 
portation chain that reaches inland to Timbuctu and 
Gao. Within the limits of the Senegal alone are 
about 1,500 miles of telegraph wire and 100 miles 
of telephone. Through the Senegal, therefore, the 
products from the upper reaches of the great Niger 
find their way to the sea; inversely, through the Sene- 
gal may quickly pass soldiers and machine-guns into 
the Chad district, if occasion requires. 

At many places in this colony you may find the 
French schoolteacher on the job. At Dakar is a 
technical high school for all five colonies; at St. Louis 
is a commercial high school and a normal school for 
native schoolteachers, sheikhs, and the sons of chiefs. 
The towns that have a good French nucleus are pro- 
vided with regular French schools, somewhat modified 



THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN 193 

by the fact that the Senegal is not exactly France. 
There are probably fifty such towns, with a school 
attendance of at least 10,000. I know of no other 
place on the West Coast where the white man has so 
earnestly set himself to the task of educating a large 
bush population. 

The equally vast area of the Upper Senegal and 
Niger is a region where bush and desert meet and 
merge into each other, for it embraces the valley of 
the upper Senegal, two-thirds of the valley of the 
Niger, and not a little of the Sahara. Only the dis- 
tant outposts are under martial law. 

Here, in what was once the western Sudan, the 
Frenchman is building some big cities — and building 
for the future, (i) Kayes, at the head of naviga- 
tion on the Senegal, is the beginning of the railroad 
that reaches across 350 miles to the head of navigation 
on the Niger. It has a Grand Hotel, a tramway, a 
cafe, a boulevard, and miniature department stores. 
(2) Bamako, near the other end of the railroad, is the 
new capital of this colony. (3) Koulikoro, the actual 
terminal, is the starting-place of the small steamers 
that pick up the cargo marked " Timbuctu." (4) 
Timbuctu, once a world-famous centre of Islam, is half 
Sahara and half Sudan. Gone is its sanctity, for in 
the shadow of the Grand Mosque (nine centuries 
old) is the Cercle Militaire, the mission of the White 
Fathers of the Sahara, and the French hospital. (5) 
Gao, well within reach of the rriarauding Touaregs, is 
rising as the importance of Timbuctu wanes. It is 



194 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

on the line to Zinder and Lake Chad, and therefore 
of great strategic importance. A company of Sene- 
galese infantrymen are there to police the blacks, and 
a corps of camel-cavalrymen look after the black- 
veiled Touaregs. 

Those who are inclined to regard the Frenchman 
as an impractical enthusiast may be surprised at the 
way he handles the educational problem so far back 
in the hinterland. Near Koulikoro, on the bank of 
the Niger, is a model farming village that spreads 
over a thousand acres. Near it is an agricultural 
rural school and an experiment station to help the 
natives out of the peculiar problem of finding tropical 
plants that can withstand long droughts. At Bobo- 
Dioulasso is another school; it teaches the natives 
how to profitably gather wild rubber. At Bamfora 
and other centres are demonstration schools to encour- 
age, the cultivation of rubber. At another place is a 
dairy school; at another an ostrich-" farming " sta- 
tion; and at another is a young Frenchman who spent 
two years in the United States learning how to grow 
cotton; he is now passing the knowledge along to the 
men of the bush. There are also stations for the en- 
couragement of finer grades of cattle and goats. The 
Frenchman an enthusiast? Yes. Impractical? No. 

Go down into French Guinea, then into the Ivory 
Coast, and on down into Dahomey — it is the same 
story in each. Governor-General Ponty has his do- 
main all planned out and he keeps his five lieutenants 
all in the air at once, like a juggler with his balls. 



THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN 195 

Harbour improvements, railroads tapping the hinter- 
land, river navigation, military roads, telegraphs, tele- 
phones, cables, primary schools, training schools, a 
native soldiery, city beautification — the programme 
is the same wherever you find the French flag wav- 
ing over African territory. 

And now, that I be not charged with exaggeration, 
hear the testimony of a distinguished Englishman who 
has seen most of " the new and naked lands." You 
will find it in Mr. A. H. Savage-Landor's book, 
" Across Widest Africa " : 

" We have a notion in England that the French occupy 
their colonies by mere brute force, by keeping a large staff 
of officers and a strong force of soldiers in all their military 
posts; but indeed no nation in the world does things in a 
simpler and more practical way than the French in their 
African colonies. ... I must confess that I was not aston- 
ished to find the French officer such an admirable person, 
but I was surprised to notice how intelligent non-commis- 
sioned officers were in the French colonial army — men of no 
higher grade than sergeants possessing sound technical 
knowledge of surveying, road and bridge making, and engi- 
neering in general, that many a superior officer of some 
other countries I know would have difficulty in emulating. 

" In the way of colonial wars, it is surprising what the 
French have done in Africa, and how they can keep their 
colonies going with so few officers and men." 



XIV 
A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 

ON the left, in a gorgeous blaze of orange and 
pink and lilac, the West African sun was 
dropping into the Atlantic. On the right, out- 
lined against the sky, was the bold headland that a 
daring mariner once saw as a crouching lion and 
named Sierra Leone. Slowly the nose of the cruiser 
swung round and pointed up the deep, sluggish river 
that the slave-ships of a century ago knew as the best 
harbour on the whole western coast. Historic Free- 
town was at hand. 

So beautiful was the extremity of the cape, with its 
thick growth of green, and so like one of the Thousand 
Islands of the St. Lawrence, that it was difficult to 
realize that we were alongside of one of the deadliest 
spots in Africa — ^the real, original " White Man's 
Graveyard." The little bungalows yonder on the 
heights are not summer cottages nor sanatoria; they are 
the cheerless homes of British officials who are doing 
their utmost to keep well until their year is up and 
they can run back to their families in England and 
Scotland for four months. But what about the thou- 
sands of blacks who have no cities of refuge? 

Pleasant it was, in the twilight, to see this little 
English-African city unfold in panorama. High up, 

196 




HOMES OF IMPORTED NEGROES, FREETOWN 




A CREW OF KROO COALERS, SIERRA LEONE 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 197 

the "Sugar-Loaf" peak that sentinels the city; near 
its top the white of an invaHds' retreat and the bar- 
racks of the West India regiment; on the crest of a 
hill to the right, the mud huts of the West Africa 
Frontier Force; in the centre, the barracks of the 
British troops and the palace of '' the Officer Ad- 
ministering the Government"; along the waterside 
the well-built warehouses of many merchants; and 
all over the landscape the frame cottages of the Blacks 
and the spires of the churches. 

As the first African colony for freed slaves, it was 
founded more than a century ago, but it was not taken 
over by the Crown until 1807. Then it was the foul 
nest of slavers, a pitiful village of disheartened West 
Indians and raw natives brought ashore from cap- 
tured slave-ships, a pest-hole whose very breezes were 
laden with the fever that is the alien's most relentless 
foe. What is it now ? I waited eagerly for the dawn. 

Morning broke grey and cheerless — the heights 
veiled in mist and the saturated clouds hanging over 
Freetown like a pall. Then the rain came down in 
sheets, slackened, then came again. Between showers I 
was rowed ashore. Architecturally I found the lower 
city all that a West Coast city should be. The trading- 
houses were commodious and well-stocked with the 
showy merchandise that the African loves; the gov- 
ernment houses were like the English character — sub- 
stantial but not showy; the churches were not ornate 
but decidedly creditable. The people were fairly well- 
dressed, but with more slouchiness than in Monrovia. 



198 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

The sloping street leading to the wharf was wide 
and well-graded; the other streets were wide but with 
plenty of grass. No wheeled vehicles of any kind were 
to be seen. Every cross-street had its little cow-paths 
worn bare by pedestrians. Many of the residences 
were attractive and the general average of the whole 
district was high — that is, for Africa. But an hour's 
walk in Freetown is like a walk through the Negro 
quarter of an American city: you are conscious of 
being in a ^' nigger-town " — which is not true of the 
residential district of Monrovia. 

The " colony "of Sierra Leone is the peninsula; the 
hinterland is the " protectorate." The inhabitants of 
the colony are descendants of American and West 
Indian immigrants on the one hand, and of pagans 
liberated from slave-ships on the other. The '' colour- 
scheme " of an early traveller still applies : they are 
blacks and browns — siennas, sepias, umbers, jets, and 
ebonies. Most of them are educated, and nearly 
every man, woman, and child belongs to one of the 
seventy-seven churches in the Freetown district. 
Many of them are intelligent and capable, but I am 
utterly at a loss to understand how anybody who 
knows Freetown can criticise Liberia. 

One experience in transacting business with native 
officials can hardly be equaled in any port of the world. 
Although I bore a letter of introduction from the Brit- 
ish Colonial Office, I had to leave my revolver and 
cartridges in the custom-house when I landed. When 
I was ready to sail, I procured a written order from 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 199 

the Customs Inspector and expected to see my prop- 
erty promptly delivered — but I did not know Sierra 
Leone. Here is what actually happened: 

( 1 ) A clerk made out a memorandum and sent me 
to a clerk higher up. 

(2) Clerk No. 2 made out another memorandum 
and sent me back to No. i. 

(3) No. I gave me another memorandum and re- 
ferred me again to No. 2. 

(4) No. 2 wrote another memorandum and re- 
ferred me to another government building. 

(5) There we had much palaver and I was given a 
messenger instead of a memorandum and sent back to 
the place of starting. 

(6) Then a clerk took me to the storehouse and 
produced the revolver. 

The procedure required nearly an hour, with the 
boat already under steam and its sailing-flag hoisted. 
And it was raining as only Africa knows how. 

Once, on a Liverpool steamer off the West Coast, 
two young officers were discussing the worthlessness 
of Monrovia Negroes, for whom they had no redeem- 
ing word. After they had exhausted themselves with 
this pastime, one of them brought his palm down on 
the other's knee: 

'' After all, old man," he said, " let's own up ! Do 
you know any nigger on the coast that is more con- 
temptible than the Sierra Leone nigger?" 

" I give it up," replied the other. " He's the limit 
of cussedness." 

From Freetown to Plymouth I shared a stateroom 



wo THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

with a big Yorkshireman who was quitting Sierra 
Leone after two years' service. From his point of 
view, everything in it was " rotten." I have heard the 
same story from so many white men who were fa- 
mihar with West Coast towns that I may quote with- 
out reluctance from the report of an American mis- 
sionary who visited Sierra Leone on a tour of in- 
spection : 

" No one here seems to have any very definite knowledge 
of anything about here, and very little conception of what I 
mean by my questions. An Englishman is slow enough to 
comprehend an American, but these African gentlemen are 
simply awful. . . . They are well-educated in book knowl- 
edge but have no judgment, and it requires a good deal of 
grace to deal with them. We do not want to begin our 
work within less than 200 miles of Sierra Leone — or, at least, 
we should be as far as possible from its influence. 

" There are thousands of well-educated people here — edu- 
cated almost to a man by the Church Missionary Society — 
and there is hardly a more wicked place on earth, I believe. 
And the worst of it is that they are and have been counted 
as fruit of the C. M. S., and they are nearer hell to-day than 

when they were dragging about a slave-chain." 

/ 

But Freetown is not really so bad as this, in my 
opinion. I confess that I was much surprised to see 
how little the colony has to show for a whole century 
of British rule (outside of what the missionary schools 
have done), but there are many things to be com- 
mended. A West African town with a pure water- 
supply, several hospitals, a railroad, a bank, a savings 
bank, a postal service, and well-stocked stores is on the 
way to civilization, at least. But whenever Sierra 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 201 

Leone " pokes fun " at any other West Coast city, 
it is a case of the pot calHng the kettle black. Here 
are a few of the most striking facts about this colony 
that is older than any other on the coast : 

(i) Though established as a refuge for slaves, it 
was made a Crown colony in 1807 mainly because it 
had the only safe harbour on the West Coast of 
Africa. Yet it is still true that vessels must anchor out 
in the river to discharge their cargoes into lighters. 
In harbour construction, Dakar is 3,000 years ahead. 

(2) In spite of a hut-tax on the natives of the 
hinterland and many other kinds of taxes (there are 
fifty-eight varieties of the stamp-tax that helped to 
bring on the American Revolution), the second cen- 
tury of English rule began with a deficit and with a 
public debt of about $6,000,000. 

(3) The death-rate of Freetown in 1907 was 23.5 
per 1,000, whereas the birth-rate was only 16.9. 

(4) In spite of special provisions made for the 
health and comfort of British officials, the term of 
service is only twelve months, with a four-months' 
furlough. 

(5) At the close of the first century, there were 
59 miles of first-class highway, 50 miles of third- 
class, and 71 miles of fifth-class trails — but there 
was no wheeled traffic anywhere except on the rail- 
road. 

(6) The annual report for 1907 shows that $350,- 
000 worth of liquors was brought into the colony. 

(7) Except an intermittent ice- factory (mainly for 
Europeans), there was not a factory or mill in the land. 



202 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

(8) A hundred years of governmental education 
(excluding small grants to mission schools) had pro- 
duced these results: four small Mohammedan schools 
in Freetown and one school in the protectorate for the 
sons of chiefs. The missionaries have educated the 
colony. 

(9) Fourah Bay College, the finest college on the 
West Coast, has been maintained by the Church Mis- 
sionary Society for nearly a century. The Governor's 
report for 1908 says : " If, however, by the end of 

.1911, no further arrangements have been made, it 
seems probable that the long and honourable career of 
the College will come to an end." 

(10) I expected to find the region back from Free- 
town checkered with little farms; I went through it 
on a railroad motor-car and found it covered with 
bush. 

(11) After various spasmodic efforts have been 
made to develop agriculture to feed the government 
railroad, the report makes this comment : "' Too little 
is known of the agricultural problem on the West 
Coast of Africa to enable the Government to advise 
the Chiefs as to the best method to pursue in the cul- 
tivation of the land." 

(12) Peace is maintained by a Frontier Force of 
500 native troops, who are held in check by a West 
India regiment, which is watched over by a garrison 
of British soldiers. 

(13) The British Consul-General at Dakar (who 
was an army officer in Sierra Leone for an extended 
period) described the hinterland in 1903 as " a country 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 203 

every whit as uncivilized as the Congo swamps of Cen- 
tral Africa to-day." 

But let the specifications stop here, and let us turn 
to the crowning glory of the colony, the Sierra Leone 
Government Railway, the first in British West Africa. 

It isn't much of a railroad, compared with the New 
York Central or the Pennsylvania, or even with the 
newer railways now under construction in other Brit- 
ish colonies on the West Coast of Africa, for it is 
only two and one-half feet wide and 22^ miles long. 
The first section was opened for traffic in 1899 and its 
extension has slowly but steadily gone forward year by 
year. The present inland terminus is within a day's 
march of the Liberian frontier, where the builders 
have apparently halted to await expected changes in 
the political status of the neighbouring Negro republic 
before going further. 

The railroad is a surface line, winding around the 
bases of the hills instead of cutting through them, and 
often avoiding the necessity of a trestle by making a 
long detour. In this respect the French railroad build- 
ers in Africa are immeasurably superior to the British. 
The road-bed of the Sierra Leone Railway is a good 
piece of work, however; in spite of the torrential rains 
of the wet season, there has occurred but one serious 
washout in ten years. 

Railroad construction in every part of West Africa 
must overcome certain difficulties peculiar to this coast. 
One of the most serious is the insignificant-looking 
white ant, usually known as the " bug-a-bug." This 



204 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

voracious ant has a mania for dried wood and it de- 
vours everything from a dead tree in the forest to the 
furniture of the white man's bungalow. There are 
very few varieties of wood hard enough to resist its 
attack. In the face of an omnipresent enemy Hke the 
" bug-a-bug," it would be folly to make use of tim- 
bers in construction work, so all the ties, sleepers, 
girders, and other supports of tracks, all the trestles 
and bridges, are entirely of metal. 

Some of its " auxiliaries " are distinctly African. 
Three of these were inaugurated in the latter half of 
1908, with a view to increase the traffic by providing 
up-country traders with facilities for transporting 
palm kernels and other products from the villages to 
the railroad. Two of these experiments — traction 
engines and bullocks — were disappointing on account 
of local conditions, but the method described as " bar- 
rel-roller transport " seems to be working out. This 
is a very primitive method, the device being nothing 
more than a well-constructed barrel with a detach- 
able head. The produce is loaded into the barrels, the 
heads are fastened down, and the barrels are rolled 
to the nearest station. It is a vast improvement over 
the native porterage method. 

Under climatic conditions such as prevail through- 
out West Africa, one may expect constant trouble 
with machinery of all kinds — and with the men who 
have it in charge. Months of daily rain cause every- 
thing from a watch to a locomotive to go wrong with 
rust, and even in the dry season the atmosphere con- 
tains a superabundance of moisture. Moreover, a 




THE UNITED BRETHREN HOME IN FREETOWN 




OFFICERS OF THE AMERICAN NAVY ASHORE 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 205 

large part of the railroad's equipment must necessarily 
be entrusted to native subordinates who have neither 
the requisite knowledge nor the inclination to fore- 
stall the necessity for repairs by the exercise of proper 
precautions. And, indeed, some of the white men who 
come out are deficient in the same respects, yet they 
must be paid higher salaries than they can com- 
mand at home, and must also be furnished with trans- 
portation both ways (about $230) every eighteen 
months, and also provided with expensive bungalows 
on the field. As a result of these and other conditions, 
the working expenses of the little railway amount to 
upward of $300,000 a year. 

The general offices are located in the Freetown 
station, which is a much finer depot than one would 
expect to see on this coast. The country stations are 
also commendable structures and the grounds enclosing 
them are laid out in tropical plants and flowers. The 
only diminutive buildings are the flag stations, which 
are not much larger than a dry-goods box but answer 
their purpose admirably. The freight depot at Free- 
town has a novelty in the line of enabling native ship- 
pers to classify their own cargo according to its destina- 
tion. Since they cannot read the painted signboards, 
the background of each is of a different colour. A 
man accustomed to shipping goods to Bo, for example, 
need learn the place of deposit only once; thereafter he 
need only remember the colour of the sign. 

A feature of the yards is the group of attractive 
stone bungalows for the white employees. Those hold- 
ing the higher positions have each a house to him- 



206 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

self, while the fitters, engineers, etc., are housed in 
groups. An ample recreation ground has been pre- 
pared and a clubhouse is now being fitted up. The 
men in the shops draw better wages and live in finer 
houses than they ever knew in England and Scotland, 
but it is a glad day nevertheless when they board the 
steamer that takes them home. The white man's life 
on the West Coast, even at its best, is a life that few 
men would envy. 

The men who come out are usually selected by the 
consulting engineers in England, and their term of 
service in Africa is only twelve months (half as long 
as the American missionaries stay) ; their passage is 
paid both ways and they are allowed to remain four 
months at home, on full pay. The following is a list 
of the positions filled by white men, with the salaries 
per year thereto attached : 

General manager, $3,360; his clerk, $1,368; chief 
accountant, $2,400; his assistant, $1,440; senior asst. 
traffic manager, $1,920 + $384 duty allowance; his 
assistant, $1,440; traffic inspector, $1,272; two traffic 
officers, $1,416 and $1,080; locomotive superintendent, 
$2,789; his assistant, $1,824; locomotive foreman, 
$1,440; six fitters at an average of $1,152; three fitters 
and engineers, average $1,180; boiler-maker, ^1,080; 
eleven engineers at from $360 to $1,224; two black- 
smiths at $1,176; maintenance engineer, $2,640 + 
$432 allowance; his assistant, $1,920 + $432 allow- 
ance; two draughtsmen at $1,680; track inspector, 
$1,440; thirteen tracklayers at $1,032. All of these 
are provided Vv^ith free quarters. 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 207 

Some of the Sierra Leone blacks receive salaries 
equal to those of many of the whites. Among the 
examples are the traffic supervisor, $1,440; junior 
draughtsman, $1,440; storekeeper, $1,008; inspector 
of telegraphs, $864; and two engineers at $864. But 
the natives receive no free quarters, no travel allow- 
ance, and no four-months' leave. 

Some adequate conception of the working efficiency 
of the European staff may be gathered from the fol- 
lowing figures, which are for the latter half of 1907 : 



No. of white officials 52 

No. of days on duty 7,058=75 . 19% 

" " " "leave 2,111=22.48% 

" " " " sick list 219=2.33% 



Twenty-six (one-half) of the men were not sick at 
all; nine were sick for ten days or longer; the longest 
sick leave was for nineteen days. 

No trains are run after dark — chiefly because they 
would not pay, but partly because of a playful native 
habit of placing stones on the rails. 

Some of the minor regulations governing passenger 
traffic would provoke perspiration and profanity, if not 
rioting, should they be adopted by American railroads. 
Here are a few: 

(i) The ticket offices at all stations are opened 
thirty minutes before train-time, but close five min- 
utes before the train leaves. No tickets are sold 
thereafter and no one is admitted to the station plat- 



THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

form without a ticket, though there may be an abun- 
dance of time in which to board the train. 

(2) The friends of a passenger may not pass the 
gatekeeper to " see him off " without presenting plat- 
form tickets — costing two cents apiece. 

(3) The baggage regulations are very restrictive. 
Hand baggage consisting of personal effects (but not 
merchandise) up to twenty- four pounds may be car- 
ried free on one ticket. Beyond that weight, the pas- 
senger is confronted with excess charges. An ordi- 
nary steamer trunk carried over the main line and 
back again would cost from $8 to $12. 

The American who travels over the Sierra Leone 
Railway and enquires into its workings will soon be 
apprised of his pitiful ignorance of the English lan- 
guage. He buys his ticket at the *' booking office " 
and his *' luggage " is " booked " instead of checked. 
The round-trip is the " double journey " or the " re- 
turn journey." The engineer is the " driver," the 
brakeman is the " guard " and the conductor is the 
" head guard." 

The track is the "way"; switches are ''points"; 
switchmen are '' point-boys "; and a switch engine is a 
'' shunting locomotive." 

Freight is always "goods "; a freight-car may be a 
" vehicle," a " van," or a " wagon " ; a cattle-car is a 
" cattle-truck "; a flat-car with side-boards is a " van "; 
a construction or repair car is a " breakdown van " ; 
a coach is a "carriage"; a parlour car is a "saloon 
carriage." 

The service involved in the delivery of a telegram is 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 209 

"porterage." Crackers are ''biscuits"; tin cans and 
boxes are '' tins " ; a safe may be a '' chest "; a barrel 
or a keg may be either a " cask " or a " puncheon "; 
peanuts are "ground-nuts"; but hosiery is plain 
" socks " in His Britannic Majesty's English. 

The United States is admirably represented in this 
part of Africa by a corps of excellent men — the 
United Brethren missionaries. Their beautiful head- 
quarters in Freetown and Albert Academy (both built 
of concrete blocks) are among the few exceptionally 
fine buildings in the colony. The Academy is a train- 
ing school that any nation might be proud of. 

My personal relations were with the Vice-Principal, 
Mr. E. M. Hursh, who is also our Vice-Consul. The 
gracious courtesy of this energetic American and of 
Mrs. Hursh is one of the pleasantest memories of 
Africa. 

With the exception of the fine work being done in 
Albert Academy, the United Brethren are working 
mainly for the people of the bush. There are more 
than thirty active stations distributed through the 
hinterland. The significance of this American work 
may be seen in this extract from the report of one of 
the missionaries — Mr. Kingman, whose wife sleeps in 
a rain-soaked grave and who has himself braved 
death for many years: 

"We have set out 622 kola trees, 1,030 cocoa trees, and 
"^AZZ plantains and bananas, which we hope will serve as 
shade for the cocoa trees. 

" We have also recently planted in nursery 3,000 Para 



210 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 



rubber seeds, which have nearly all germinated and are now 
young trees a foot and more in height. We have also 
planted 7,000 cocoa seeds in cane pots, and I expect to 
see young cocoa trees when we return to the station. We 
have cane pots already in ground and filled with earth 
to receive 2,000 more cocoa seeds, which we hope soon to 
receive. 

" We have also planted about 6,000 lime-tree seeds. Some 
of these seeds were just beginning to germinate when we 
left the station. We have also growing a large variety of 
native fruit trees." 



FRENCH 
GUINEA 




= Cttltit Improrrf BoaJ 



SIERRA LEONE AFTER A CENTURY, 



XV 
THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 

NOT many nations can say that they have gone 
into Africa with a pure heart and come out 
with clean hands. The greed for territory, 
the love of conquest, the lure of the gold-reef and 
the diamond-field, the lust for caoutchouc and yellow 
palm-oil — these baser passions have impelled most of 
the invaders of the Dark Continent. Slaughter of 
Moors at Melilla and Casablanca; slaughter of Arabs 
in Algeria; slaughter of fanatics in the Egyptian- 
Sudan; slaughter of Hottentots and Zulus and Boers 
in the South; slaughter of blacks in Angola and Ger- 
man Southwest Africa ; " atrocities " in the Belgian 
Congo, and " punitive expeditions " all along the West 
Coast' — the record is written in blood. There were 
extenuating circumstances, of course; but the carnage 
is deplorable. 

The American Government has not lacked oppor- 
tunities (that is, plausible excuses) for sharing in the 
loot of Africa. From the day in 1815 when Commo- 
dore Decatur sailed into the Barbary pirates down to 
the day in 1909 when Captain Wilson steamed into 
Monrovia harbour with two cruisers loaded with 
American Commissioners, we might have planted our 

211 



212 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

flagstaff ill African soil. But I am not sure that our 
staying out is a fact to brag about. 

The United States is known in Africa (wherever it 
is known) by its Chicago windmills and its Singer 
sewing-machines; by its Boston rum and its Standard 
oil; by its Virginia tobacco and its mining machinery; 
but mainly by its schoolhouses and its dispensaries. 
The American missionary is the widest and most fa- 
vourably known of all our exports. 

The sweep of American imperialism is infinitely 
wider than the average man realizes. Up to the Span- 
ish War we ruled no alien peoples; yet American 
money and American men and women were quietly 
making history in nearly every land under the sun — 
history that has been set down to the credit of others. 
(For instance, about four out of five of the educated 
men of Japan in 1890 had received their first instruc- 
tion in Western learning from American mission- 
aries.) An unreasoning prejudice has caused the 
average American to overlook the fact that the chief 
work of a missionary in any land is that of teaching 
school and healing the sick. And if you will study 
in detail the history of any successful colony under 
any flag, it will be apparent that the teacher and the 
doctor had much to do with it. 

The foreign visitor to America is fond of saying 
that our nation is money-mad; that in his swift pur- 
suit of wealth the American takes not time to eat, 
to think, to play, to help. They overlook such facts 
as these: 



THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 213 

(i) The number of mission schools and colleges 
supported by Americans with American money is 
nearly as large as that of all the schools conducted by 
the missionaries of all other countries combined. We 
have approximately 10,000 schools in lands that are 
not under our flag and from which we receive not a 
cent of revenue. 

(2) Of all the medical missionaries throughout the 
world, more than half are from the United States. 

(3) If a man in quest of material for an American 
educational exhibit were to sail out of San Francisco 
Bay with a phonograph recorder, he would come up 
on the other side at Sandy Hook with a polyglot col- 
lection of records that would give the people of the 
United States a new conception of their part in the 
world's advance toward light. His audience might 
hear a spelling-class recite in the tuneful Hawaiian 
tongue or listen to Moros, Tagalogs, and Igorrotes 
reading from the same '' McGuffey's Reader." A 
change of records might bring the sound of little Jap- 
anese reciting geography, or of Chinese repeating the 
multiplication table in a dozen dialects. Another rec- 
ord would tell in cjuaint Siamese the difference be- 
tween a transitive and an intransitive verb, or conju- 
gate the verb " to be " in any one of the languages of 
India: One might hear a professor from Pennsylvania 
lecturing on anatomy to a class of young men in the 
ancient kingdom of Darius; or a young woman from 
Massachusetts explaining the mysteries of an eclipse 
to a group of girls in Constantinople; or a Princeton 
man telling in Arabic the relation between a major 



214 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

and a minor premise. And, when the audience had 
listened to all this and to '' My Country, 'tis of Thee " 
in Eskimo and in Spanish, the exhibit of American 
teaching would have only begun. 

We may have varying estimates of the usefulness 
of the man who goes abroad with Bible and hymn- 
book, but there can be little difference of opinion about 
the man who carries his gospel in a surgical case or 
the woman whose chapel is a thatched dispensary in 
an out-of-the-way corner of the world. 

You may journey from the Golden Gate to Steven- 
son's grave in the South Seas, wind your northward 
way through the Pacific islands to Canton and Shang- 
hai, take the overland trail across Asia to Constanti- 
nople or swing south to Bangkok and westward to 
Suez; then you may circumnavigate the Dark Conti- 
nent or cross it from Cairo to Capetown and from 
Sierra Leone to Khartum — and in all these months 
and months of travel you will never be far from the 
American missionary physician. His diploma is from 
one or another of the best medical colleges in the 
United States and his experience has been gained in 
a practice probably larger than that of any professor 
that taught him. 

These countrymen of ours are administering chloro- 
form in Jerusalem and Damascus and Tyre, vaccinat- 
ing in Peking and Singapore and on the road to 
Mandalay, and giving quinine in the malarial forests 
of the Zambesi, the Congo, the Niger. They are on 
the slopes of the Andes and high up in the Hima- 



THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 215 

layas, " the roof of the world." There is an Ameri- 
can medical station at Harpoot, near the headwaters 
of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and these are the in- 
structions how to get there : " Cross the Bosphorus 
from Constantinople to Scutari and take the train to 
Angora, going thence for three weeks by caravan." 

The critics of these men should remember that the 
act of wrapping powders in tracts instead of in tinted 
paper does not interfere with the efficacy of either; 
and because a surgeon has the habit of offering prayer 
before he gives the anaesthetic, it must not be as- 
sumed that his hand is unsteady or his instruments 

unsterilized. 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

Let us, in the fulness of our pride, boast also of 
the fact that the only place in Africa where the Black 
Man may rule himself is an American colony — a fact 
which it has taken nearly a century for. Washington 
to discover. 

An American colony? Of course. Was it not 
founded by the American Colonization Society, in 
conjunction with the United States Government, on 
land " acquired by purchase from the lords of the 
soil"? Nobody else participated in its founding; 
even the West Indian settlers came at a later period. 

As a republic it has a Declaration of Independence, 
a Constitution, and a flag, all modelled closely after 
our own, and its people have never claimed kinship 
with any other hemisphere but ours. i\s a matter of 
fact, Liberia is the only place in the world where the 
American people have established a colony made up 



216 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

mainly of Americans. And yet, up to the time of Sec- 
retary Root, the most that an American Secretary of 
State would admit was this, '' To the United States 
it is an object of peculiar interest." 

Except during the brief visit of the American Com- 
mission, I was the only white American in Monrovia; 
in fact, the only one that many of the Liberians had 
ever seen. (I was introduced to the students of a 
large American school at Cape Palmas as the first 
visitor from America during the twenty-odd years 
that Mr. Neal has been in charge.) It was to me a 
cause of great satisfaction, therefore, that neglect was 
the only crime that the Liberians could lay at the 
door of my country. " Nobly and in perfect faith " 
is the phrase used in their Declaration of Independence 
to describe the conduct of the American people. It 
was distinctly pleasant to be an American in Liberia. 

News travels fast in these West African lands, 
and as soon as it was noised abroad that an American 
visitor had dropped in, all sorts and conditions of men 
began to call at the American Legation. To the vis- 
itor it was almost like a homecoming. Men and boys 
passing along the street tipped their hats in greeting, 
and even the children appeared anxious to welcome 
a man from the country about which they had heard 
all their lives. It happened during this first week that 
a delegation of farmers from up the St. Paul River 
came to the capital to make a political demonstration. 
Many of these men of the soil had served their appren- 
ticeship in the cottonfields of the South, and their 



THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 217 

welcome to me was almost an ovation. One patri- 
arch slowly climbed the steps as the delegation was 
leaving, and gave me his trembling hand. " I seed 
you on the porch," he said, apologetically, and with 
the old-time Negro deference, " and I know'd you wuz 
some o' mine — and I'm some o' your'n." When I 
visited the various settlements back from Monrovia, 
and along the coast, I found a universal and unmis- 
takable affection for everything that bears the Ameri- 
can name. 

It was a great pleasure to find that the man who 
represented the United States Government in Liberia 
was not a figurehead. At the time of my visit Dr. 
Ernest Lyon, a coloured minister from Baltimore, was 
Minister-Resident and Consul-General ; and he was 
nearing the close of six years' distinguished service 
at that sweltering post. 

As a rule, American diplomatic and consular offi- 
cers occupy a very small place in the political and 
social life of African cities, but in Monrovia I found 
the representative of the United States to be the big 
man among the legations. His residence was in the 
most conspicuous location; he was the only foreign 
representative above consular rank — ^but he was the 
American Minister, which is the main thing. Him- 
self a man of ripe experience and wide culture, and 
an official of strict rectitude, the leaders of the Liberian 
Government long leaned upon him as a friend in hours 
of perplexity, and he shared their confidence to a 
greater degree than any other foreigner in the republic. 
He knew everybody of prominence in the entire coun- 



218 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

try and travelled through the interior more widely than 
the President himself. Everybody knew him and 
nearly everybody liked him. Through all the years of 
his service, he retained his energetic and systematic 
habits of work. It was his privilege to watch the 
development, step by step, of the series of international 
moves that led up to the gravest crisis in the modern 
history of Liberia, and he kept the State Department 
regularly informed of every event as it unfolded. Dr. 
Lyon filled a difficult post — one where life is lonely 
and health uncertain. The West Coast fever was as 
frequent a visitor in his home as is " the grippe " in 
America, and within the last year he was called upon to 
pay the toll of African service in the loss of his ac- 
complished wife. 

There has been much talk about measures to im- 
prove the Consular and Diplomatic Service. May 
one who has seen something of American and other 
consuls suggest that Washington try the experiment of 
appointing more men like Dr. Lyon? 

* Jk ^ _ ^ :}c 

It was odd to find, back in the hinterland, that the 
word " American " did not convey any idea to the 
native mind. Once a Liberian commissioner was ex- 
plaining to the head-men of a village who I was. 
First he took the negative side : I was not an English- 
man, and I was not a Frenchman. Then he explained 
that I was from '' Dr. Day's country " — and one by 
one they arose and snapped finders with me. Dr. 
Day, I learned, was a Lutheran missionary for twenty- 
five years, and his name has become among many 



THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 219 

tribes a synonym for America. His gracious influence 
has outlived a generation. 

American citizens, white and coloured, may be 
found in all parts of Liberia, but they are engaged 
almost exclusively in educational and missionary 
work. There is not a school in Liberia above the 
elementary grade that does not owe its existence to 
American beneficence. From Cape Mount to Cape 
Palmas, every college is an American mission institu- 
tion, except the state college at Monrovia, which was 
founded by the Massachusetts Colonization Society — 
which was missionary in everything but name. 

The Lutherans have a large boys' industrial school 
at Muhlenburg, on the St. Paul River, about thirty 
miles from Monrovia, and a girls' school just across 
the river. The pupils are altogether from the native 
tribes, many of them being the children of important 
chiefs. One king in the Bassa country has eight sons 
now in the institution. During the fifty years of its 
history under Dr. Day and Mr. Beck, this mission has 
exerted a civilizing influence that reaches far into the 
hinterland. Whenever I found in a native town a 
young man wearing clothes or speaking English, I 
usually found a former student of the Muhlenburg 
mission. 

The Methodists have more than a thousand students 
in their colleges and day schools. West Africa Col- 
lege, at Monrovia, is the most efficient institution of 
higher learning in this part of Liberia. Cape Palmas 
Seminary, at Harper, a large boarding-school for boys 
and girls, has Dr. Sherrill, of Atlanta, a real educator, 



220 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

at its head. All the Methodist schools are on the up- 
grade under the direction of Bishop Scott, an Ameri- 
can coloured leader of the Booker Washington type. 
Endowed with common sense to an unusual degree, 
and also with a sense of humour, this jovial, unpre- 
tentious, earnest bishop is a man greatly esteemed in 
Liberia. He is as thoroughly at ease in meeting the 
hardships of bush travel as in conducting a religious 
service. 

The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United 
States is represented by Bishop Ferguson, a coloured 
churchman who has spent nearly all his life in Liberia 
and whose activity and natural strength have not 
abated. The schools under his supervision are en- 
gaged in high-grade work and their graduates are a 
credit to the benevolent Americans who support the 
institutions. The bishop and almost his entire staff 
of clergymen — most of whom are from native tribes 
— were educated in these mission schools, of which 
Cuttington Institute for boys and Brierly Hall for 
girls, both at Cape Palmas, are chief. At Bromley, 
near Monrovia, a large building to be used as a girls' 
industrial school is nearing completion; and the be- 
ginnings of another important school at Cape Mount 
have already been made. There are at least thirty 
men in public life, including Vice-President Dossen, 
ex-President Gibson, and a number of legislators, 
whose education was obtained at Cuttington. The list 
includes also eleven Americo-Liberian clergymen, ten 
native clergymen, and twenty-nine catechists and 
teachers — all now in active service. 



THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 2^1 

Two strong tendencies in all the schools of these 
three bodies are significant: The percentage of native 
African pupils is largely on the increase, and the in- 
dustrial idea is supplanting the scholastic ideal. For 
example, in the Episcopal school for girls at Cape 
Palmas, eighty-eight of the ninety-eight boarding- 
pupils are native African girls, and what we know as 
" housekeeping " is as unfamiliar to them as the deci- 
mal system. 

J|t ^ 5|< ^ ^ 

The coming of the American Commissioners to Li- 
beria was the one event that had for weeks been dis- 
cussed more than all others, but nobody knew exactly 
when they would arrive. An unofficial cablegram 
gave a clue, but the despatches from the State De- 
partment to the American Minister were, for some 
inexplicable reason, held up in Sierra Leone (the 
cable office), and the result was that the smoke of 
the Chester was seen from the lighthouse before the 
cablegrams announcing its departure from New York 
reached Monrovia. 

On the highest point of Cape Mesurado is the signal- 
tower, and near it is a battery of ancient and rusty 
guns, given to Liberia by the United States Navy and 
mounted there so long ago that only a historian can 
tell you who did it. 

Early on the morning of May 8, 1909, these old 
relics began to boom. Monrovia hopped out of bed, 
shook hands with itself, and said, '* The great day of 
the Lord has come!" 

The first gun pulled me out of bed, too, and I hur- 



^22 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

ried out on the Legation porch and turned my glasses 
on the signal-tower, which always hoists the flag of 
an incoming ship. Now the Liberian flag is exactly 
like our own, except that it has only one star. I could 
see the stripes on the signal flag, but it provokingly 
refused to unfold. Finally a breeze straightened it 
out — and there it was, a whole basketful of stars! 
Not since I saw it go up over Morro Castle in San 
Juan, Porto Rico, have I seen anything that looked 
so good. 

My recollection is that I got into a few clothes and 
touched several of the highest places between me and 
that battery of forgotten American guns that were 
barking a joyful welcome to the incoming flag that 
used to snap in the salt-winds above them. I turned 
my eyes seaward and saw the black smoke bulging 
from the Chester's four funnels. Oh, it was a goodly 
sight ! 

And did Monrovia go wild? No; it just went 
wild. 

While the Commissioners were listening, in front 
of the American Legation, to the last of five addresses 
of welcome, a significant incident happened just across 
the street, at the residence of the agent of the Bank 
of British West Africa and of the Elder-Dempster 
Steamship Line. This subject of His Britannic Maj- 
esty had made preparations for running up the British 
flag just as the Commission reached the Legation, 
though there was no occasion for such display. It 
happened, however, that the rope broke and the Union 
Jack tumbled down. The coincidence appeared to af- 



THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 22S 

ford a great deal of satisfaction to those who saw the 
occurrence. 

Tell it not in Gath — but the American Commission 
to Liberia was a good deal of a fizzle. Shortly before 
its arrival, the Liberian Register had published sketches 
of its distinguished members — Mr. Robert C. Ogden, 
Dr. Booker T. Washington, and Mr. Jacob H. Hol- 
lander — and it was at least wildly hoped that it might 
be convenient for Mr. Roosevelt to call by on his way 
to the hunting-grounds. But when Midshipman Wil- 
lett came ashore, we learned that not one of these 
gentlemen was in the harbour. 

For fifteen minutes after the departure of the Mid- 
shipman, there was turmoil in the American Legation. 
The entire household was frantically hunting a copy 
of " Who's Who in America " in order to find at 
least something about the Commissioners that would 
make their names sound big to the expectant Li- 
berians who were already gathering in the anteroom. 
Minister Lyon did his best to " feature " the Com- 
missioners, but I could see that he had a heavy heart. 

In the second place, they were understood to be 
coming in three battleships, but when Monrovia 
reached the top of the Cape it saw one lone cruiser. 
(The Salem had been disabled before starting, and 
the Birmingham was in the hospital at Cape Verde 
with boiler trouble.) But the Minister manfully 
" played up " the Chester as " the fastest boat in the 
United States Navy." The fact, however, that the 
Chester had saluted the Liberian flag with guns so 



224 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

small that the salute was not heard in Monrovia weak- 
ened his praise. It was Liberia's answering salute 
that woke up the town. 

Next, when the Commission's Chairman made 
speeches, they took all the heart out of the people. 
As one man expressed it, " he seems to be afraid to 
say anything that will make us feel like holding on." 
It was not long until it was evident to all that the 
budding hopes of the people had received a decided 
American " frost." But the Minister went about ex- 
plaining that representatives of the State Department 
must be very conservative. 

The Commission's attaches helped to save the day, 
for they mingled with the people. Major Ashburn 
established a clinic and gave free medical treatment 
to everybody that came. Captain Cloman had a genial 
smile and a hearty handshake for all; Monrovia fell 
completely in love with him. Mr. Flower (who has 
recently died in Liberia) made a specialty of mixing 
with the unofficial society from early morning until 
late at night. But the Honourable Commissioners sat 
in solemn state in their house on the hill and received 
those whom they sent for. 

Even the press got the Arctic shoulder. The Com- 
mission itself had brought out to me authority from 
the Associated Press to cable important news, and 
the Chairman had every reason to trust my discretion. 
Yet he gave out not a single item of news during 
the entire session. He seemed to be so much afraid 
of offending Washington through publicity that I kept 
entirely away from the Commission's headquarters. 



THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA S25 

As the Chester was leaving Monrovia for Freetown, 
Captain Wilson (its commander) invited me to go 
that far as his guest in order that I might catch a 
Liverpool steamer; when the Chairman learned of 
this, he sent his secretary with a special request that 
I would make it clear to Sierra Leone that I had no 
connection with the Commission! 

The absurdity of it all consisted mainly in the fact 
that no " state secrets " were involved. Liberia was 
anxious to be investigated and most of the facts and 
figures were already in my possession — for I had been 
" on the job " for several months. Besides, I had 
landed in Liberia unheralded and there was no time 
to cover up anything that looked unsightly. (Before 
the Commission arrived, for instance, the grass in the 
principal street was all carefully dug up!) I have 
this satisfaction, at least — that if any curious-minded 
person should ever dig up my article in The World's 
Work (written before the Commission landed) and 
compare it with the Commission's report to the Presi- 
dent, he will find a remarkable agreement^ so far as 
the main facts and conclusions are concerned. 



XVI 
THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 

IT is well for Americans to know — I say this de- 
liberately and with much emphasis — that informa- 
tion about Liberia is not to be trusted if it come 
from European sources. There are some English 
gentlemen, for instance, who have had an object in 
persuading the outer world that the Negro republic 
is on its last legs, tottering into anarchy and ruin. 

Take just one example out of many that I could 
give. The leading merchant of Grand Bassa was ex- 
pecting an important shipment of merchandise from 
Liverpool. The steamer that carried me into his port 
was expected to bring the goods. Instead the mer- 
chant received a letter from the Liverpool shippers 
saying that they deemed it inadvisable to fill his order 
until Liberia recovered from its turbulent condition. 
Now, to my knowledge, the whole land was as calm 
as Toronto on a Sunday, so I inquired into the cause 
of the Liverpool rumour. 

And this was the cause : A delegation of dissatisfied 
farmers from some of the settlements up the St. 
Paul River had come down to Monrovia, marched in 
orderly procession to the Senate chamber, formally 
petitioned that body to impeach President Barclay, 

226 




PRESIDENT BARCLAY SECRETARY JOHNSON 

GOVERNOR-GENERAL TONTY, OF DAKAR 



THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 227 

and then quietly dispersed. It was the " tamest " sort 
of a political demonstration. I saw a larger one, got 
up by the opposite party to counteract the effect of 
the first, and it was no more tumultuous than a parade 
of Royal Arch Masons. Yet the British Consul- 
General cabled to Europe that Liberia was in a state 
of wild disorder and that the lives of foreign resi- 
dents were in danger! 

One who claims to speak truthfully about a 
controverted subject should have credentials. Here 
are mine: 

(i) I went to Liberia with only one object in view 
— to study the situation quietly and report exactly 
what I found. 

(2) I had previously had enough experience with 
the Negro race and with a republican form of gov- 
ernment to enable me to interpret what I should see — 
and I had already learned, in Africa itself, a few 
things about African politics. 

(3) I landed in Monrovia on January 13, 1909, 
when the atmosphere was relatively calm; I was on 
the spot and in close touch with the men and events 
that led up to ''the crisis"; I was there when the 
American Commission landed on May 8, and re- 
mained until its members left on May 29. 

(4) I have visited nearly every important Americo- 
Liberian settlement and have been about 200 miles 
back from the coast, among many native tribes. 

(5) My point of view was that of a critical but sym- 
pathetic American, Southern-born. 



228 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

(6) I checked up my judgment about Liberian af- 
fairs by that of nearly every American resident and 
of the most prominent Liberians, and found a grati- 
fying unanimity. 

I landed on Liberian soil in absolute ignorance of 
the republic's troubles. To my amazement, this is 
what I found: 

British officials sitting at the receipt of custom. 
British army officers commanding the only regular 
troops, a large percentage of them being Sierra 
Leone (British) subjects; their arms and ammu- 
nition were in cases marked '' On His Majesty's 
Service." 
British naval officers commanding the only gunboat. 
British demands that the British inspector of cus- 
toms have supervision over the Treasury De- 
partment. 
A British consul-general dictating peremptory de- 
spatches to the Liberian Government after the 
manner of a Governor-General. 
Nobody outside of the British diplomatic service 
knows whether the fault lies with the Foreign Office 
or the Colonial Office, or with both, but nearly every 
foreigner in Liberia (except the English) will tell you 
that some one has unquestionably had a dream of see- 
ing the English flag flying over the Executive Mansion 
in Monrovia. The diplomacy that was rapidly shap- 
ing the end was so blunderingly open that its inten- 
tion could not be mistaken. The story is too long 
to tell except in bare outline. 



THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 229 

Everybody knows how easy it is to lend money to 
a Negro — knows also that the lending of money is a 
popular way that Europe has in playing the game of 
grab. In 1871 some Jewish bankers of London floated 
a loan of $500,000 at an exorbitant rate of interest, 
with the export duty on rubber as security. Sir Harry 
Johnston, being an Englishman, will not be accused of 
exaggeration when he says in his book that there was 
so much fraud in the transaction that $200,000 is a 
fair estimate of the money that actually reached 
Liberia. 

Some later historian will show, in a similar way, 
how Sir Harry's company defrauded Liberia in the 
Loan of 1906, for another half-million. Sir Harry 
had come out to Liberia and made a great stir. He 
organized a development company, which was to do 
wonderful things for the republic; then he went to 
London to raise the money. But his distinguished 
name was not good at the bank, nor would the people 
of London buy his stock. Then happened what must 
give Sir Harry a permanent place among the world's 
financiers: He induced Liberia to authorize his com- 
pany to borrow $500,000 and give as security the cus- 
toms revenue of the republic. After it was too late, 
the Liberians found that they had not a word to say 
about the expenditure of the money. Sir Harry spent 
most of it in the manner that pleased him best, and 
President Barclay went to England and rescued a 
remnant from the hands of the bankrupt company. 
The President himself told me this. 

The financial result of these transactions is that, 



230 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

from two loans amounting to more than half of Li- 
beria's public debt to-day and on which the country 
is regularly paying interest to the British, the republic 
has very little to show except the fresh scars of the 
English yoke to which it had bent its neck. The finan- 
cial result proved to be unimportant as compared with 
the political result. 

There are but four powers that have interests in 
Liberia — the United States, Germany, Great Britain, 
and France. America is represented by schools and 
mission-stations. Germany owns two of every three 
vessels that enter Liberian ports, and nearly every im- 
portant trading-house in the country is from Ham- 
burg. With these two nations — those having by far 
the largest interests — the Liberians have had only 
pleasant relations. France is the neighbour on the 
north and east; having seized a sixty-mile strip of 
Liberian territory on the Ivory Coast side and lopped 
off parts of the northern limits, it threatens further 
boundary difficulties. 

The serious trouble has been almost wholly with the 
English, whose Liberian interests include two loans, 
one steamship line, one important trading-house, and 
a " development company." It soon became apparent 
that the British Government was backing the interests 
of the capitalists in a very suspicious way. It began 
to demand that Liberia immediately bring about cer- 
tain " reforms " — some of which would require years 
— " or be prepared, at no distant date, to disappear 
from the catalogue of independent countries." 



THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 231 

It has been charged that the EngHsh are lacking in 
a sense of humour. I have not found it so. British 
diplomatic literature is to me far more entertaining 
than Punch. Any one reading Consul-General Wal- 
lis's curt letters to Liberia, for instance, would get the 
impression that Downing Street is as anxious as a 
JPresbyterian elder that the Negro republic should set 
Its house in order — provided the setting be done by 
British officials at Liberian expense. But here are 
certain facts that are as unquestionable as a Bank 
of England note: 

The British wanted to reform Liberian finances — 
yet the two big financial frauds that had taken at least 
half a million dollars out of the Liberian cash-box 
were both British. 

The British insisted upon a Liberian Frontier Force 
commanded by British officers — yet Major Cadell (the 
commandant) had to leave Monrovia in disgrace and 
in debt, refusing to account for the expenditure of 
perhaps $60,000 of public money. On arriving in 
London he legally changed his name to Mackay. 

The British insisted that Liberian troops be sent 
to the boundaries — yet the most acute boundary 
trouble is at Kahre Lahun, where British troops are 
twenty-five miles over the line that a British commis- 
sion had pegged out. A small tribe armed with a few 
antiquated shotguns was accused of harassing a strong 
colony that has one of the most efficient Frontier 
Forces in Africa! 

The British sold to Liberia a revenue-cutter and 
supplied an officer to command it — yet practically all 



THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

the smuggling on that coast has been done by British 
vessels. While I was in Liberia, two captains of 
English steamers were caught and fined — one $500, 
the other $1,500. 

The British made a great ado about the multiplicity 
of Liberian officials — yet the salaries of the civil of- 
ficials required for the government of Sierra Leone 
would run the whole Liberian Government for two 
years. 

The British Consul-General was always talking 
about Liberia's failure to civilize the interior — yet I 
went unarmed and without a guard anywhere in the 
hinterland that I desired. 

But the most convincing evidence of Captain Wal- 
lis's sense of humour came out in a conversation. He 
told me what a burning shame it was .that the Li- 
berian legislature had ordered the revenue-cutter to 
bombard Grand Cess, a Kroo tow^n of 1,000 huts 
which was in open rebellion against the customs 
officials. In the name of His Britannic Majesty and 
of the civilized world, he had notified the Liberian 
Government that the gunboat could not perform this 
inhuman atrocity so long as it was commanded by one 
of His Majesty's subjects. 

Now I knew that this tender-hearted consul had 
commanded a punitive expedition in the Sierra Leone 
uprising twelve years before, at which time more na- 
tives had been slaughtered than Grand Cess ever saw 
— and all because they didn't like the hut-tax. Also, 
I had just been reading about it in his own book and 
remembered this sentence : " Great Britain has been 



THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 233 

unceasingly employed in crushing the power of the 
many hostile races in West Africa." What was there 
about Grand Cess, I asked myself, that had so aroused 
His Majesty's Consul-General that he was filling the 
papers of Europe with his indignant protests? 

The answer came later, when the Chief Customs In- 
spector (himself a British subject and an excellent 
gentleman) made his report to the President of Li- 
beria. This is an extract : 



" I held several long interviews with the rum merchants of 
Grand Cess and they gave me numerous details of the contra- 
band trade that has been carried on here for so long. Grand 
Cess has been the distributing point for every little town along 
the coast as far as Cape Palmas and even beyond, and the im- 
portation has been everything from lOO 20-gallon barrels up 
to 400 per month — all purchased from Elder, Dempster & Co. 
[British] steamers." 



A detailed account of British activities in Liberia 
would run along in this fashion until it filled several 
chapters. It is a shameful story, and I regret the 
necessity for having told it in outline, for I am Anglo- 
Saxon myself. My personal bias in favour of Brit- 
ish rule in Africa is shown in the chapter on "The 
New Pha.raoh in Egypt " — but for British rule in 
Liberia I have no sympathy. Personally, I am not 
overfond of the Englishman, it is true; but neither am 
I overfond of the Negro. 

The situation reached its climax on February 10, 
1909. Was it an accident, or was it planned ? Listen. 
On the 4th (this was learned later) Consul-General 



2S4i THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Wallis cabled for a gunboat; it arrived on the loth, 
with Sierra Leone troops aboard. On the 4th Captain 
Wallis told me that Major Cadell's troops (Liberian) 
were on the verge of mutiny; also that some ex- 
soldiers who had long since been discharged because 
they were British subjects had come to Monrovia to 
demand back-pay. On the nth Major Cadell wrote 
an insulting letter to President Barclay, saying that 
his force would probably mutiny at nine o'clock the 
next day. They mutinied, threatened the life of the 
President, and only the cool temperament of the Mo- 
rovians averted bloodshed. 

In any American Negro-quarter there would have 
been carnage. The Monrovians had their teeth set 
hard, but if a mob of reckless patriots had burned the 
British consulate or a drunken Negro had thrown a 
rock or a bullet through a British window — which 
would have been perfectly natural — the British pro- 
gramme would have been carried through. But the 
expected outbreak did not outbreak — ^and the Consul- 
General had no excuse that would justify him in sig- 
nalling to the gunboat for troops. 

American Minister Lyon promptly called a meeting 
of the foreign consuls, but the attendance of the Brit- 
ish Consul-General was prevented by " a previous 
engagement." President Barclay formally notified 
him of the mutiny, and he quickly responded with an 
offer of troops from the British gunboat — an offer 
which was declined with equal promptness and sa- 
gacity. Some Liberian militiamen were called out and 
a small detachment, under a Liberian officer, was sent 




CONSUL-GENERAL WALLIS 



BISHOP S. D. FERGUSON 




DR. ERNEST LYON, AMERICAN MINISTER TO LIBERIA 



THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 235 

to take charge of the camp. But Major Cadell had 
secretly fortified all approaches to the camp, and he 
refused to admit the Liberians. Thereupon the Presi- 
dent requested the British Consul-General to order all 
British subjects out of the camp by a certain hour, as 
it would be taken by assault. There was nothing left 
except to evacuate; Major Cadell removed to the 
consulate and his men were dismissed from the serv- 
ice. His unitemized bill was paid in full and he left 
for England — left also a number of debts, it is said, 
which the government agreed to pay. 

Cool but determined diplomacy beat Captain Wal- 
lis at his own game, and Monrovia settled down to 
await the next move. But just then something 
happened. 

What happened? Oh, nothing much; only your 
Uncle Sam — ^back on the old job! Liberia got word 
that Congress had authorized the President to ap- 
point three Commissioners, and send them to Liberia 
in three warships — and every Liberian blew out his 
chest-measurement four inches. It was merely a co- 
incidence, of course, that the time had arrived for 
His Britannic Majesty's Consul-General to take a 
leave of absence! He had fumbled the ball. He is 
now Consul-General at Dakar, and Briton's mild- 
mannered and courteous representative at Dakar 
(Major Baldwin) was transferred to Monrovia. 

Liberia's trouble with the French (whose territory 
adjoins on the north and east) is the old, old story 
of the pasture-fence. The quarrel with the French 



236 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

began along in the '80' s, about the time that French 
West Africa began to take shape as a vast tropical 
empire. French Guinea, 'which lies to the north of 
Sierra Leone, was extended around behind that col- 
ony and Liberia and pushed on down to join the small 
neck of land on the Gulf of Guinea known as the 
Ivory Coast. Then it began pushing its frontier-line 
steadily toward the coast, taking one region of the 
Liberian hinterland after another — but being careful 
not to tinker with the Sierra Leone hinterland. In 
1892, sixty miles of Liberian coast east of the Cavalla 
River was seized by France on the flimsiest of pre- 
texts. In words of one syllable, it was a plain steal. 
The Liberian commissioners appealed to the Ameri- 
can Ambassador in Paris and learned that the United 
States could not be expected to intervene. Since then, 
with a diplomatic cleverness that Negroes can never 
hope to match, the French boundary-line on both north 
and east has been steadily pushed into Liberia. 

In 1905-06 thousands of square miles along the 
northern boundary became French; before the new 
line had been surveyed, part of the agreement was 
repudiated in order that the boundary of the Ivory 
Coast might be pushed across the Cavalla River. Nor 
did that end the encroachment. I met the Belgian sur- 
veyor who represented Liberia on the delimitation 
commission and he showed me on his map just where 
the Governor of the Ivory Coast insisted upon run- 
ning the line, in violation of a specific treaty, because 
he had discovered another region that was rich in 
rubber. 



THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 



237 



Meanwhile, like the British Government, the French 
have indulged in the most unctuous expressions of in- 
terest in the welfare of the Black Republic. It is hard, 
even for one who has always firmly believed in the 
white colonization of Africa, to retain his faith in the 
humanitarianism of Colonial Offices after a somewhat 
extended observation of their workings on the spot. 




William. EognniDg Co.,_N.Y. 



LIBERIA'S PORTABLE BOUNDARY 



XVII 

WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA 

" In coming to the shores of Africa, we indulged the pleasing 
hope that we should be permitted to exercise and improve those 
faculties which impart to man his dignity — to nourish in our 
hearts the flame of honourable ambition, to cherish and indulge 
those aspirations which a beneficent Creator hath implanted in 
every human heart, and to evince to all who despise, ridicule, and 
oppress our own race that we possess with them a common 
nature, are with them susceptible of equal refinement, and capable 
of equal advancement in all that adorns and dignifies man. . . . 
Thus far our highest hopes have been realized." — Liberia's Decla- 
ration of Independence. 

*' r I ^HUS far" — ^but that was sixty-three years 
I ago. The agitation that preceded the Civil 
War came upon us then and the little 
African republic dropped below the horizon, there to 
maintain its struggle as best it could. What about its 
"highest hopes" to-day? 

This was the question in my mind as I looked one 
night upon the dark outline of Cape Mesurado and 
waited on shipboard for the dawn. With eager in- 
terest I went ashore the next morning, curious to see 
how the little experiment had turned out — and curious, 
as a Southern man, to see how the Negro type had 
been affected in the second and the third generations. 

To one who has wandered about in Africa and 

338 



WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 239 

realized that mission schools, Standard oil, and Singer 
sewing-machines are there the only reminders of the 
existence of an American republic, Liberia is a start- 
ling change. Elsewhere in Africa the United States 
is merely a geographical fact, and a fact of no con- 
sequence; its currency is good only here and there; 
its colloquial language is an unknown tongue; its most 
familiar institutions are as foreign as a Fourth-of-July 
celebration in Russia. 

But sit with me on the balcony of the American Le- 
gation in Monrovia and remember that you are in 
Africa. This little capital, like the Monroe Doctrine, 
bears the name of a President of the United States. 
This main street, the Pennsylvania Avenue of the 
capital, has the name of Ashmun, who lies buried in 
New Haven, Conn. Yonder lagoon, Stockton Creek, 
which leads into the St. Paul River, commemorates 
an officer of the United States Navy. The little strip 
of land beyond it, Bushrod Island, got its name from 
Bushrod Washington. That building across the street 
is the " Executive Mansion." Glance at the flagstaif 
above it — the flag is the Star and Stripes. And where 
else, on the eastern side of the Atlantic, will you hear 
men talking familiarly about " the President," " the 
Senate and the House," and '' the Supreme Court "? 

All along Liberia's 350 miles of coast and up and 
down the sluggish rivers, the story is the same. You 
are constantly passing little settlements that bear such 
familiar names as Virginia, New Georgia, Clay-Ash- 
land, New York, Louisiana, Buchanan, Hartford, 
Greenville, and Lexington. And if you go ashore 



240 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

at Harper and Latrobe (Cape Palmas), in Maryland 
County, you can refer to Baltimore without explain- 
ing that it is a city in the United States. 

And if you stop to talk with Liber ians in any part 
of the country, you learn quickly that these are not 
the names of a glory that has departed. It is a curious 
fact that the American spirit is stronger in Liberia 
than in many parts of the United States itself. I 
once sat at a banquet given in Cape Palmas by Vice- 
President Dossen. As the speakers responded to their 
various toasts, it struck me that a chance listener 
would have imagined that this was a company of 
American Negroes come ashore from some passing 
steamer. 

They will tell you on most of the steamers that 
Monrovia is '' the rottenest town on the coast." Here 
is the most faithful picture of it that I can draw — and 
it was drawn in Monrovia itself : 

Beautifully situated on the neck of a high cape, near 
the mouths of two rivers, the capital presents from 
the ship's deck an aspect of quiet civilization that is 
in marked contrast with the clusters of thatch-roofed 
huts on the islands nearby. On landing at " the water- 
side," the favourable impression is marred by a nar- 
row, most unattractive street lined by rickety frame 
buildings and zinc warehouses, with the booths of 
street-venders on both sides. This, the business cen- 
tre of Monrovia, is thoroughly discreditable; but the 
discredit falls most heavily upon Europeans, for 
nearly every important business house on this street 




MONROVIA—THE HILLTOP 




MONROVIA— THE WATERSIDE 



WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 241 

is occupied by a British or German firm. From the 
waterside to the hill-top, a distance of two blocks, the 
steep ascent has been so washed by the torrents of 
the rainy season that the visitor is convinced, before 
he reaches the summit, that the capital of Liberia is 
indeed the most disreputable of all cities. 

But the real Monrovia, as the eye takes it in from 
the hill-top, is as different as the Central Park region 
of New York City is from the tenements of the East 
Side. The main street is lined with attractive cot- 
tages having large porches and balconies, with the Ex- 
ecutive Mansion facing an open square. These cot- 
tages are occupied mostly by government officials and 
foreign legations. Beyond is the residence district 
proper — streets of frame cottages constructed after 
the pattern of those seen everywhere throughout the 
Southern States. Of these, Sir Harry Johnston re- 
marks that there is nothing like them to be seen any- 
where else in Africa. The general average is about 
that of the homes of the most prosperous Negroes in 
America, and I was told that most of the Monrovians 
own their own homes. The city, as a whole, gives 
little evidence of civic pride, but even the American 
Negro is not an enthusiast on the subject of the beau- 
tification of cities. 

There was much about Monrovia that reminded me 
daily of home, more particularly of my earlier home 
in the South. I saw no real difference between the 
people of Monrovia and those of the same race in 
the United States. Even their shortcomings were 
homelike. 



242 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

The people of Monrovia look, dress, and act very 
like the better class of Negroes of Atlanta or Louis- 
ville. All the Americo-Liberians (and many civilized 
natives) are neatly but not flashily clothed, and most 
of the aborigines put on an extra cloth when they 
come to town. I doubt if there be anywhere in the 
United States a Negro community of the size of 
Monrovia where there is so little boisterousness, pro- 
fanity, and indecency. Swearing is a lost art, and I 
saw but one case of drunkenness during my first month 
in Monrovia. 

The Liberian Sundays suggest the quiet of a New 
England city — a quiet that is broken only by the sound 
of church organs and congregational singing. There 
appears to be a complete absence of the American 
saloon, of the degrading concert-hall, and of the 
Negro " dive." The Monrovian may not be a paragon 
of virtue and sobriety, but he is certainly a decent 
citizen. 

In most respects, this description of Monrovia ap- 
plies also to Harper (Cape Palmas), the original 
capital of the Maryland colony. For tropical beauty 
and whole-souled hospitality, Cape Palmas is not sur- 
passed on the West Coast of Africa — so far as one 
man's experience goes. Between these two cities are 
several important ports of entry, and all along the 
coast are scattered little settlements of Liberian 
planters — some prosperous and well-housed, others 
reflecting the deep poverty of sloth and failure. Bor- 
dering upon this coast-belt of civilization is a fringe 
of half -civilized natives, with a few fruit trees and 



WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 243 

some coffee-bushes around their squahd villages; and 
beyond these lies the great mass of the uncivilized, 
who plant nothing but what they eat and whose 
civilized attainments rarely extend further than to- 
bacco, gin, calico, and gunpowder. 

The total number of the Americo-Liberians is gen- 
erally given as 30,000 or 40,000, and that of the na- 
tive population is placed at 2,000,000. At the last 
Presidential election (1907), according to the " Hand- 
book of Liberia," 7,167 votes were cast; but only 
land-owners may vote. 

* * * * ^ 

The head of the government, President Arthur 
Barclay, is a leader of ability and infinite patience, 
but his drawling speech (characteristic of many West 
Indians) betrays a slow-going disposition. He is 
fifty-six years old and is a full-blooded Negro, but his 
features are refined and pleasing. He is simple and 
unaffected— the acting mayor of Monrovia puts on 
many more airs— and admits everybody into his pres- 
ence except when they interfere with the despatch of 
business. (" Despatch of business " is an expression 
too dynamic for the West Coast, however.) It is a 
common sight to see his vestibule crowded with the 
retainers of native chiefs who have come down to have 
" the Big Daddy " settle their palavers. 

Mr. Barclay was born in Barbados, West Indies, 
and therefore was a British subject. But he went to 
Liberia in his boyhood and was educated there. He 
became a real-estate lawyer, was Secretary of the 
Treasury three times, and has been sent abroad on 



244 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

several diplomatic errands. He became President in 
1904 and his term expires in 191 1. All the other 
Liberian Presidents have been preachers, yet Mr. 
Barclay has done more than any of them to stop in- 
ter-tribal warfare — and that without the aid of an 
army. 

Though elected with the idea that he would become 
the saviour of his country from the English political 
invasion, which was then looming up, he has been 
charged with collusion to deliver Liberia over to the 
British and with having negotiated the Loan of 1906 
with that in view. This charge is probably without 
foundation; Mr. Barclay's sympathies have undoubt- 
edly inclined toward the British, but he is not a rascal 
like Liberia's most distinguished son. Dr. Blyden. 
Delegations in different parts of the country have 
gone so far as to demand his impeachment. How- 
ever, he is strongly entrenched behind the leaders of 
the only political party in the republic. 

That Liberia has been upon the verge of losing its 
integrity as a nation is due to his lack of experience 
rather than to want of patriotism; and his luke- 
warmness toward the United States is not surprising 
when it is remembered that he has never been in our 
country, neither has he seen, until recently, any real 
indications of interest displayed by the American 
Government. 

The Vice-President, Judge James J. Dossen, Is also 
a gifted man and a fine executive. He presides over 
the Senate with dignity and sees that its business is 
conducted without waste of time. He will be remem- 



WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 245 

bered by many Americans as the leader of the envoys 
who visited the United States, for he made a fa- 
vourable impression everywhere he went. Judge Dos- 
sen comes from the Maryland colony, and his sympa- 
thies are strongly American. There are few men in 
Liberia so well qualified as he for public service in a 
time of great stress. 

He is a young man, an xALmerico-Liberian, and is 
also of unmixed blood. He was educated in the 
American Episcopal school in his native city, and is 
a practising lawyer of note. He is rather a reserved 
man, inclining toward the aristocratic, and is not very 
popular outside of his own county. He aspires to 
the Presidency, but his immediate chances are slight 
unless President Barclay makes some serious mistakes 
in his attitude toward America. Any man can be 
elected President of Liberia if he be American in sym- 
pathy, provided the issue should chance to be squarely 
drawn against him on that line. 

The Secretary of State, F. E. R. Johnson, is the 
grandson of a former President, is about half- white, 
and has travelled more widely and acquired a more 
extensive " culture " than any other Liberian. Paris 
and Berlin are his favourite topics when he meets for- 
eign visitors, but he does not " make a hit " with 
strangers. He has never been in the United States, 
and lacks Judge Dossen's enthusiasm on that subject. 
He is a diplomat by instinct, and a lawyer by pro- 
fession. Being the only Liberian now in the country 
who can speak French fluently, he ^as had a great 



246 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

deal to do with the negotiations concerning the 
Franco-Liberian boundary. 

Mr. Johnson continues his practise of law, though 
he is a Cabinet officer^ and he usually wins his cases. 
He is credited with being one of the wealthiest men 
in Liberia, and his new residence is one of the finest 
in Monrovia. 

Secretary of the Treasury Howard is a son of the 
soil, but he outranks all the members of the Cabinet 
in local importance, for his fingers grip the purse- 
strings of the nation. Of course, a treasurer can dis- 
burse moneys only upon order from his superior; but 
when funds are habitually short, that ofificer may easily 
arrange to pay vouchers in the order that best suits 
his convenience or pleasure. It is all-important that 
every man who expects to have dealings with the Li- 
berian treasury should be on good terms with the 
Treasurer; and since this officer is also the chairman 
of the political party that names the President (who, 
in turn, appoints nearly every other official in public 
life), it can easily be seen that Secretary Howard need 
envy no man in Liberia his position. He is a modest, 
quiet gentleman, but is also a man of spirit. When 
President Barclay once decided to yield to British 
pressure and allow the Chief Inspector of Customs 
(British subject) to supervise the paying-out of the 
public revenues, Mr. Howard promptly resigned. The 
President was too wise to allow an open rupture with 
the chairman of his party, however, so the Secretary 
of the Treasury remains his own financial adviser. My 
guess is that his chief lack is money, not advice. 



WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 247 

Chief-Justice Roberts, who Hves halfway down the 
coast, is a venerable Negro from Georgia, with a fund 
of humour and a laugh that carries for a block. He 
is now extremely feeble, but his intellect is clear and 
his spirit unbroken. Associate-Justice Richardson is 
also President of Liberia College. Aside from the 
general charges against him as a justice, he has been 
publicly accused of gross immorality and has not called 
his accusers to account. The College (founded and 
still partly supported by the American Colonization 
Society) is on the down-grade and will never amount 
to anything until it gets a new president. The other 
Associate, Justice Tolliver, has not been in office long 
enough to make his mark. 

Of the eight gentlemen who compose the Liberian 
Senate, Senator Harmon, of Grand Bassa, is perhaps 
the most widely esteemed man in the body, if not in 
all Liberia. He is a native Liberian, a self-made man, 
and is now one of the wealthiest men in the country. 
He is the agent of the Elder-Dempster steamship line 
at Grand Bassa, where he is also the leading merchant, 
and he has at least twenty-five branch houses along the 
coast and in the interior. His new residence is prob- 
ably the finest in Liberia and his hospitality is also 
of the finest. No suspicion of dishonesty or disloyalty 
has ever shadowed his fame, and up to his election as 
Senator he had never held public office. The Senator- 
ship was practically forced upon him. He is a modest, 
straightforward man, with a pleasing personality. If 
he had Presidential ambitions and cared to press a 
campaign, he could probably be elected over any 



248 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

man in the republic, in anything like a fair election. 
Among the fourteen members of the House of Rep- 
resentatives, there are really no men of exceptional 
influence, so far as the republic as a whole is con- 
cerned. Most of them are new to official life and 
have not yet made their reputations. Moreover, as 
soon as a man's influence foots up to the requisite 
total, he naturally seeks a transfer to the Senate. The 
members impressed me as being sincere patriots. 

A legal adventurer of great astuteness who has plied 
his craft in various parts of the world, Mr. T. Mc- 
Cants Stewart, is again in Liberia. A gentleman of 
polish, with a flow of language that is remarkable and 
that is backed up by intellect, Mr. Stewart might easily 
become one of the greatest men of his race but for 
two or three fundamental weaknesses. He lacks sin- 
cerity, worst of all; in January, 1909, he published a 
letter endorsing the English in their demand for re- 
forms and insisting that the American Government was 
also supporting them. He argued it with me hotly 
for an hour, but in a conversation just before the ar- 
rival of the American Commissioners, he was not only 
pro- American but claimed a large share of the credit 
for bringing the event to pass. The Liberians distrust 
him, but he stands close to President Barclay — too 
close, in the judgment of some. 

Another gifted American Negro whose cog-wheels 
have become entangled is an all-round mechanic by 
the name of Faulkner. He is one of the most useful 
men in Monrovia, for he can repair anything from a 




SENATOR HARMON ENTERTAINING SHIP'S OFFICERS 




THE JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF LIBERIA 



WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 249 

boiler down to a watch. He installed the telephone 
system, which does not ndw exist. He has cut a chan- 
nel through the bar in the harbour. He runs the only 
ice-plant in Liberia. But he also dabbles in politics 
and is one of about half-a-dozen young men who 
are constantly stirring up antagonism against the 
Administration. 

One of his associates in agitation is Editor Gray, 
a " yellow " journalist whose paper might be put to 
much better use. An editor of a different school is 
John L. Morris, who is also chiefly responsible for 
the reforms in the Postmaster-General's department, 
of which he was Secretary. Young Morris is a re- 
markable man in many respects. He edits the semi- 
official Liberian Register and has made of it a real 
newspaper. He is now the Comptroller of the 
republic. 

Another young man who will have much to do with 
Liberian affairs in the future is Counsellor C. B. Dun- 
bar, who was one of the envoys to America. He 
manages to keep out of the political ring and is 
steadily making money at the bar. But he is too 
capable a man to be allowed to remain indefinitely 
in private life. 

There is another young leader of the Dunbar fam- 
ily at Cape Palmas, an Episcopal clergyman in charge 
of Cuttington Institute, the only institution in the 
country that impresses the visitor with the idea that 
he is in a college. This is the school which has gradu- 
ated so many men who are now in the public service. 
The Rev. Mr. Dunbar is an ambitious, tireless worker 



250 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

and doubtless has a long career of usefulness before 
him; but he is not as practical in his ideals as might 
be wished. 

Bishop Ferguson's son, also of Cape Palmas and 
also a clergyman, is another young man of the same 
type, but with a predilection for printing-presses and 
newspaper work. He is now fitting up his shop with 
the expectation of making his own half-tones for use 
in his church-paper. The Silver Trumpet. He does 
the cleanest printing in the republic and can also bind 
books, as well as edit them. 

No mention of Cape Palmas is complete without a 
reference to Major-General Tubman, the most radical 
American sympathizer that I met in Liberia. He is 
a real fighter and not merely a tin-soldier, and he is 
also a real patriot; but in his zeal he gets things pretty 
badly mixed sometimes. 

Let the list of Who's Who in Liberia not overlook 
the names of three successful farmers whose influ- 
ence is mighty in their counties. Mr. J. J. Hill, of 
Arthington, about thirty miles from Monrovia, was 
once a slave boy; he came to Liberia and started at 
the very bottom — but he was a w^orker. He built up 
a cofifee plantation of about three hundred acres and 
now owns valuable city real-estate, including the house 
occupied by the American Legation. He has never 
held public office. 

Mr. James J. Morris has also devoted his life mainly 
to his plantation, with some trading on the side. His 
farm, a few miles from Monrovia, produces about the 



WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 251 

same amount of coffee as that of Mr. Hill. Mr. 
Morris has steadfastly declined to accept public of- 
fice until last year, when he was prevailed upon by 
the President to become Superintendent of Montser- 
rado County. He is a man of sterling character, a 
true patriot, and a warm friend of the United States. 

A few miles below Cape Palmas is a Grebo town of 
thatch-roofed huts called Cavalla, and its inhabitants 
are a thrifty, restless people. One of these natives, 
now named Morgan, was educated and even became 
a member of the House of Representatives. But sci- 
entific farming seemed to be the bee in his bonnet and 
he left politics for the Ivory Coast, where he estab- 
lished a fine cocoa plantation. Then he had trouble 
with the French underlords, with the result that he 
returned to the Liber ian side of the Cavalla. There, 
on a little twenty-five acre plot, he now has one of the 
choicest examples of tropical farming in the whole 
country. Mr. Morgan has also a beautiful modern 
home at Cavalla, but he prefers to spend his time out 
in the comfortable mud-house on his new farm. So 
active and skilful has his agricultural work been that 
he has recently been selected as the Commissioner of 
Agriculture for Maryland County. 

One box of cigars would be enough to provide a 
smoke for every leading man in Liberian affairs, 
white and black, politicians, clergy, and laity. Nearly 
every white man in the country (and most of the 
black Americans) is a gentleman of consequence, 
either by virtue of his home connections or by reason 



252 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

of his commanding personality. Generally speaking, 
the British have figured most largely in the tangle of 
international politics; the Germans control most of the 
steamship business and have by far the lion's share of 
trade; the Americans are the only white people en- 
gaged in benevolent and educational work; the French 
are entirely absent, being even without consular rep- 
resentation at the present time. 

Broadly speaking, the Americans are men of middle 
age or beyond; the British average about thirty-five 
years of age; and most of the Germans are younger. 
Indeed, it seems to be a feature of Germany's com- 
mercial conquest to send its young men out to the 
ends of the earth to learn the business on the spot. 
Broadly speaking again, the foreigners out here be- 
have themselves much more creditably than might be 
expected. Aside from the question of international 
politics, which entangles men as well as nations in its 
meshes, the foreigners are respected by the Liberians 
everywhere. The Americans get along with them best 
of all, as a matter of course, but the Germans are 
quite sociable. The British, however, are very clan- 
nish and have as little to do with the Negroes as pos- 
sible — after office-hours. 

The biggest name in Liberia — ^bigger than that of 
President Barclay because more lasting — is that of 
Woermann of Hamburg. The letters of this name 
spell steamships, mails, commerce, and financial as- 
sistance. It is a dull day in Monrovia when the Woer- 
mann house-flag is not run up on the signal mast at 
the lighthouse to announce the approach of one of 



WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 253 

its steamers, outward or homeward. Frequently there 
are two in the harbour at one time. This Hamburg 
firm already controls most of the shipping of the en- 
tire West Coast and is rapidly taking away more of 
it from the British. This firm is also the largest 
trading-house in Liberia, having wholesale and retail 
stores in all the ports, smaller branches in the inte- 
rior, and itinerant traders still farther back in the 
hinterland. It believes in Liberia and gives the gov- 
ernment almost unlimited credit — say, at an advance 
of 33 1-3 per cent, above the regular selling price. 

Herr Dinklage, one of the Woermann managers, 
is also Liberia's consul in Hamburg. He has been try- 
ing to establish a German bank in Monrovia. If he 
succeeds, the House of Woermann will practically 
own Liberia. There are two other Hamburg houses 
in Monrovia and one Dutch trader. 

The official head of the German colony is Herr 
Freytag, the Imperial German consul — the Kaiser's 
" man Friday." He is a stout, thick-necked German 
with a sparkling eye and a shrewd expression of coun- 
tenance. He is quite sociable, but speaks English with 
some difficulty. The extensive commercial interests 
of his countrymen naturally incline him to the Li- 
berian side, as opposed to the British, and he is, there- 
fore, somewhat of a diplomatic ally of the American 
Minister. I noticed that he did not mingle with the 
Liberians, however, and was rarely seen outside of his 
consulate. 



XVIII 
THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 

" The western coast of Africa was the place selected by 
American benevolence and philanthropy for our future home. 
Removed beyond those influences which depressed us in our native 
land, it was hoped we would be enabled to enjoy those rights and 
privileges, and exercise and improve those faculties which the 
God of nature has given us in common with the rest of man- 
kind. Under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, 
we established ourselves here, on land acquired by purchase from 
the lords of the soil." — Liberia's Declaration of Independence, 
1847. 

Liberia " must not lose a moment in setting herself seriously 
to work to put her house in order, or be prepared, at no distant 
date, to disappear from the catalogue of independent countries." 
" If, however, the Government do not reform, no amount of 
guarantees will save them from the end which must surely, in 
the near future, await them." — His Britannic Majesty's Consul- 
General, igo8. 

" It is the conviction of the Commission that unless she has 
the support of some power commensurate in strength with Great 
Britain or France, she will as an independent power speedily 
disappear from the map." — Report of the American Commission 
to Liberia, igio. 

ALTHOUGH the requiem mass for Liberia 
has not yet been said, the British gentle- 
men who would divide the estate are already 
announcing their plans. Mr. E. D. Morel — Brit- 
ish publicity agent and Congo atrocity specialist — 

254 



THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 255 

has turned his attention to the Negro re- 
pubHc since his campaign farther south has petered 
out. In a recent article in Cornhill, he proposes to 
set aside twenty-five miles of seaboard for the 
Americo-Liberians and divide the rest among the 
Powers. Of course, he would like to see the United 
States take it ! But — 

" in the absence of any such professed desire on the part of the 
United States, the natural inheritors of the territory would be 
France and England, whose possessions run parallel to it." 

As the tender sympathies of Mr. Morel expand, 
we shall expect by and by the outline of a plan whereby 
the whole round world will be part of the British 
Empire. 

Another and cleverer Englishman who is concerned 
about Liberia's future is Mr. L F. Brahm, the man- 
ager of the rubber and '* development " company 
which was organized out of the wreckage of Sir 
Harry Johnston's company. The $500,000 '' capital 
invested " is the half-million which Liberia borrowed 
in 1906 but did not have the pleasure of spending. 

Mr. Brahm is his own publicity agent. He allows 
himself to be '' interviewed " frequently, and views 
on Liberian affairs are often found in the New York 
papers. Those which I have read may be grouped in 
two classes: (i) Assurances that Liberia is wonder- 
fully rich in undeveloped resources, and that foreign 
capital is perfectly safe. These are for the British in- 
vestor. (2) Warning advice to the United States 



^56 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

against financing the Liberian Government or encour- 
aging American capital to cross the Atlantic. The 
New York papers print Mr. Brahm's " interviews " 
in the news column, strange to say, whereas they 
should be paid for at regular advertising rates. He 
does not want the American Government to finance 
Liberia, because he has a plan of his own to fasten 
another loan upon the Negroes. This was told to me 
by an ofificial before I left Monrovia, and a recent 
" Englishman's Warning " against American inter- 
vention contains this significant phrase, " A fresh loan 
of £300,000 would wipe it [Liberia's debt] out and 
leave a margin on the safe side." 

It is a good deal easier to figure out the age of Ann 
than to discover why the New York papers use Mr. 
Brahm's communications. Personally, I was much 
pleased with this affable Englishman — but Liberia 
classes him with Cadell and Wallis. 

There is also a white nigger in the wood-pile down in 
Maryland County. A New York paper recently pub- 
lished a letter bearing the signature of a Grebo chief 
near Cape Palmas. It was addressed to the American 
Colonization Society and complained bitterly against 
the Americo-Liberians. The letter is unmistakably the 
work of a" white man of no ordinary intelligence; 
his nationality may be guessed from one of the con- 
cluding sentences: 

" We are therefore constrained to offer our country to some 
European power — preferably England, whose methods of coloni- 
zation are less onerous — for their government." 



THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 257 

I have had the honour of drinking palm-wine with a 
number of Grebo chiefs, but I never met one who 
spake such excellent English as this. When I left 
Cape Palmas, there was a man in the dungeon, 
charged with raising the British flag and inciting the 
native Greboes to rebellion. Since my departure there 
has been bloodshed, and an American cruiser was sent 
to aid the little city of Marylanders. The significant 
fact is that these are neighbours of the people who were 
in rebellion against the customs authorities, and that 
at least two British captains have been fined for smug- 
gling on this part of the coast. As usual, Liberia's 
trouble with natives is wholly with tribes in touch 
with Europeans. The deluded Greboes are merely 
cat's-paws. 

The English are loud in their condemnation of the 
Liberians for internal disorder, but the republic has 
never had an uprising like that which devastated 
Sierra Leone in 1898, when 28,000 square miles was 
a scene of carnage. Liberia discards the crushing pol- 
icy; it even allows its native tribes to retain all the 
guns and ammunition that they can buy; yet I found 
no part of the hinterland where I needed to ask for 
a bodyguard of soldiers. Traders and missionaries 
travel or establish stations in perfect security any- 
where in the republic. 

It cannot be stated too emphatically that the only 
real peril in Liberia is '' the white peril." The repub- 
lic makes an appeal to America, for it is not able to 
match the wit of Europe that is plotting its downfall 
by clever intrigue. The Americo-Liberian point of 



258 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

view has been expressed by Mr. Roosevelt in words that 
will echo in diplomatic corridors for years : 

" The relations of the United States to Liberia are such as 
to make it an imperative duty to do all in our power to help 
the little republic which is struggling against such adverse con- 
ditions." 

Liberia is the only section of the Black Man's con- 
tinent that is now governed by the Black Man him- 
self. All Africa is European except Abyssinia, Trip- 
oli, Morocco, and Liberia, and the people of the first 
three are not Negroes. It is sometimes overlooked 
that it is one of the most interesting colonial experi- 
ments of modern times. There are three cities on 
that death-inviting West Coast that were founded as 
homes for returned slaves — Freetown, Libreville, and 
Liberia — all with prefixes meaning " free." Freetown 
was taken over by the British Crown more than a cen- 
tury ago because it then had the only safe harbour 
on the entire coast. Libreville went the same way 
when French imperialism awoke, and it is now the 
capital of the French Congo. Only Liberia remains 
free. 

Just to be let alone on a little piece of Africa " ac- 
quired by purchase from the lords of the soil," just to 
be allowed to work out their own salvation in their 
own way — ^this was all that the pioneer colonists asked 
of the world. The length of a lifetime has since been 
passed; the government is in the hands of the second 
and third generations; yet the wish to be let alone to 
work out their own salvation in their own way is the 



THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 259 

one overpowering wish of Liberia to-day, as I heard it 
expressed from Monrovia to Cape Palmas. 

All the parties concerned one way or another in the 
perpetuation of a Negro republic on the West Coast 
of Africa are now waiting to see what the American 
State Department will do, now that it has all the facts 
in its possession. Here is what the Liberian Govern- 
ment wants us to do: 

(i) Guarantee the integrity and independence of Liberia. 

(2) Refund their public debt of only $1,290,000, so that the 
yoke of the English may be removed. They do not want to 
repudiate a single dollar of it, no matter how fraudulently con- 
tracted. (Our State Department knows how to liquidate much 
larger debts for Central-American republics who love us far less 
than the Liberians do.) 

(3) Take a diplomatic hand in all future boundary disputes, 
to prevent Liberia from being bulldozed and robbed by France 
and England. 

(4) Lend to Liberia some financial, agricultural, military, and 
educational experts to straighten out the kinks in the govern- 
ment and train the young men — these experts to be paid out of 
the Liberian Treasury. 

(5) Establish closer business relations and organize an Ameri- 
can bank. 

(6) Let Europe understand that Liberia is something more 
than "an object of peculiar interest" to the American people. 

If these simple requests be granted — ^and the Ameri- 
can Commission so recommends — nobody need worry 
about Liberia's future. The Liberians are not a tur- 
bulent people; so peaceful and united have they been 
for years that there is but one political party of any 
consequence. They have plenty of men competent to 



260 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

carry on the government if outside interference be 
headed off. The country is rich in undeveloped re- 
sources that would add many- fold to the present rev- 
enues if they knew how to utilize them. And there 
are two million natives in the hinterland that can 
gradually be added to the republic's assets. Most of 
these bushmen are on the best of terms with the Li- 
berian Government and no army is needed for national 
defence. Soldiers are needed only on the British and 
French frontiers; the only men whom Liberia fears 
are whites. There is not an Americo-Liberian from 
the Mano River to Cape Palmas who lacks confidence 
in the future, if only the other fellow can be made to 
keep his hands off. 

It is wholly unnecessary for Liberia to stand abso- 
lutely alone; duty to the memories of the Americans 
who founded the little republic should have moved us 
long ago to inquire whether we might be of assist- 
ance. President Roosevelt and Secretary Root im- 
mortalized their names in Liberia at the close of their 
administration by taking a clear-cut, unmistakable at- 
titude toward the Negro republic — one that put a new 
heart into the whole country. There has crept in a 
fear that President Taft and Congress are more con- 
cerned about the welfare of Filipinos and Chinese than 
about our second-generation Negroes in Africa, but 
this may be only a fear. In any event, it is extremely 
improbable that the American people will calmly sit 
still — after having busied themselves in Cuba and 
Manchuria — and see the only American colony in the 
world wiped off the map because it has no friends to 



THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 261 

protest against the greed of two nations that already 
own nearly two-thirds of Africa. 

With the Dominican republic in the receiver's 
hands and the yet more pitiable spectacle of Hayti 
before the American's eyes, his gaze naturally turns 
across the Atlantic to the coast whereon the rolling 
surf breaks upon the white sand. Liberia, the only 
Negro republic in all Africa, should forever be the 
final answer to the question : Can the Black Man stand 
alone ? 

And the Black Man can stand alone if some unde- 
signing white man will keep other white men from 
tripping him and from building inclined planes that 
are greased beyond the first few steps. 

Here is a cause sacred enough to fight about — but 
a State Department that cannot preserve Liberia with- 
out even a ripple in the diplomatic waters would not 
be worth mentioning in the annals of American 
history. 

n* ^ '1^ 'K '^ 

I know the thrill that comes from standing upon 
holy ground. Have I not seen Bunker Hill and tented 
at Chickamauga? Do I not know the venerable tree 
where Washington took command, and the sacred soil 
of Arlington? I know also a sacred spot in Monrovia, 
down near the surf that is never still, where the his- 
toric past calls to the American heart as insistently as 
does the tomb of '* Don't-Give-Up-the-Ship " Law- 
rence in Trinity churchyard. It is the old cemetery 
where the first Liberian settlers lie in their unwaking 
sleep, their graves almost concealed by the profusion 



262 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

of ferns that cover nearly every square yard from the 
street back to the impenetrable green of the African 
bush. To an American wandering through the 
bracken, it becomes transformed into a map of the 
Southern States. ''A Native of the U. S. A.," 
''Of Charleston, S. C," "A Native of Georgia" 
— almost every discoloured slab bears some such 
inscription. 

Near the farther side of the cemetery, modest and 
unobtrusive even in death, I found the white men and 
women who went to their graves for Liberia — in the 
dark days when the fate of the republic was swinging 
in the balance. There are thirty mounds in one place, 
and no American can look down that long row with- 
out feeling that the place whereon he stands is holy 
ground. The fragmentary records of the closing 
hours of these men and women show that those who 
wrapped themselves in bloody mantles at Gettysburg 
and Santiago died no more grandly than these for- 
gotten Americans — or for a sublimer cause. 

Perhaps it was in vain. Perhaps the American love 
of liberty and fair play expended itself in freeing Cuba 
and preventing the dismemberment of China. If so, 
we should at least have a decent respect for the mem- 
ories of our own people, white and black, who lost 
their lives in the effort to make Liberia a success. 
Should the day ever come when we allow a European 
nation to haul down the republic's flag, the little ceme- 
tery wherein lie the original settlers should be re- 
served. There let the Stars and Stripes float side by 
side with the Star and Stripes of Liberia, that there 




" MODEST AND UNOBTRUSIVE, EVEN IN DEATH 




BISHOP SCOTT AND HIS KROO PREACHERS 



THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 263 

may forever remain one piece of African soil that 
the greed of Europe cannot touch. 

The call that comes to us across the Atlantic is an 
appeal based upon sentiment — but we are a people in 
whom sentiment is strong. What else caused the fight 
with Spain? And this is the call, in the language of 
July 26, 1847: 

" Therefore, in the name of humanity and virtue and religion — 
in the name of the great God, our common Creator and our com- 
mon Judge — we appeal to the nations of Christendom and ear- 
nestly and respectfully ask of them that they will regard us with 
sympathy and friendly consideration to which the peculiarities of 
our condition entitle us, and to extend to us that comity which 
marks the friendly intercourse of civilized and independent com- 
munities." 



XIX 
IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 

THE remark that " the African has no more ap- 
preciation of time than a setting-hen " was 
a real contribution to the science of ethnology. 
Here is an illustration that can be duplicated by every 
man who has ever set out for the bush : 

Kennedy (my Liberian companion) was to send 
carriers to meet me at the Muhlenburg Mission in time 
for an early start, so that we might reach our first 
village before the heat became so intense as to be 
dangerous. I therefore arose at 5 :30 a.m. and, with- 
out waiting for breakfast, crossed the river to the 
girls' school, which was the place of rendezvous. The 
two American girls in charge smiled at my haste and 
assured me that I should have ample time for break- 
fast before the carriers arrived. They were quite 
right : it was exactly ten o'clock when I saw my 
" boys " leisurely ascending the hill. Four of them 
were immediately sent to Kennedy's house for the 
loads, while the fifth was detailed to guide me at once 
to the village. We reached it at two o'clock, but it 
lacked only an hour of midnight when the four strag- 
glers — one of them with my bedding — came in! 

On the day preceding my second departure for the 
bush, all arrangements were made to start promptly 

264 



IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 265 

at 8 o'clock. In order to be sure of this, we agreed to 
assemble the carriers at 7 :oo. As a matter of fact, we 
actually started at 12:30 p.m. From the African 
point of view, this was keeping the schedule fairly 
well. 

All my bush travel was done on foot, which is the 
only sportsmanlike way to play the game. Dignitaries 
and weaklings with plenty of money to spend for 
hammockmen may travel en Pullman if they like, but 
this luxury adds that many more rogues to the list 
of carriers. Travelling in light marching order, here 
is the personnel of one of my " expeditions " : 

(i) The American Traveller. 

(2) Commissioner Sam Watkins — my Americo-Liberian 
companion. 

(3) Joe Tull — My no-count Americo-Liberian attendant. 
(Not ordered.) 

(4) Virgil Merchant — Watkins's lazy attendant. (Not 
ordered.) 

(5) Sammy-o — a stubborn Bassa carrier. 

(6) David — a silent and faithful Bassa carrier. 

(7) Umo — an active but deceitful Bassa carrier. 

(8) Dish-Pan — a weak and lazy Bassa carrier. 

(9) You-Fool — an utterly worthless Bassa carrier. 

(10) Jack-o, the Bushman — my guide with a tapeworm. 

(11) Crack-o — a faithful Tobo carrier. 

And this is what they had to carry : 

(i) Food-basket with a few cans of salmon, condensed 
milk, tea, sugar, salt, and crackers for emergency use. Also 
one bottle brandy and one box cigars (both donated). 

(2) The Traveller's cot and blanket; suit-case loaded with 
change of clothing, camera supplies, medicine, and toilet 
articles. 

(3) Watkins's iron box and folding cot. 



266 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

(4) Merchant's iron box. 

(5) TuU's iron box. 

(6) One Colt revolver and two shot-guns. 

In some regions, the money required to pay '' hotel " 
bills and '' dash " the village chiefs may be carried as 
cash in the traveller's pocket — that is, in his suit-case, 
for it must be in small silver coins. You cannot change 
bills or cash checks in a bush town. It often happens, 
however, that real money is " no good " on the trail. 
When, this is anticipated, the coin is converted into 
yards of cloth, leaves of tobacco, strings of beads, bot- 
tles of gin, or tiny kegs of powder — and all this must 
be carried on the backs or heads of extra carriers. 
The process of paying it out is one that taxes the 
ingenuity as well as the experience of even the native 
guide who knows the peculiarities of each village. 
The values increase with each day's march into the 
hinterland, so the capital stock of your department 
store often remains stationary in spite of the demands 
upon it. 

Only the man who has tried to drive a bunch of pigs 
across a bridge can appreciate the vexation of manag- 
ing a group of carriers during the first week. Some- 
thing is always happening to somebody's load, and 
you must halt until he fixes it in order to make sure 
that he does not run away with it. Meanwhile the 
carriers ahead have disappeared and you are not sure 
that you will ever see them (and your goods) again. 
I have never lost one, but have had frequent cause 
for apprehension. 

Oh, yes, you can sit down beforehand and diagram 



IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 267 

it all out — your guide in front, you behind, and your 
carriers sandwiched in between. You may even ar- 
range their sequence so that your camera outfit is 
just ahead of you and your bed just behind the guide — 
but before the first hour is up the carriers will have 
your planning all upset. There is a science or art in 
engineering a caravan, but you do not learn it the first 
day. 

Getting from the coast back to the bush is the easiest 
but the hottest part of the trip. For instance, in going 
from Cape Palmas into the Liberian hinterland, I had 
first to cover the sixteen miles that lay between me and 
the mouth of the Cavalla River. The surf is too rough 
to go by boat, but there is a lagoon that extends for ten 
miles. Two days before we started, however, the 
natives cut a channel and let the lagoon run out into 
the Atlantic, so we had to walk. 

Although I was pretty well '' seasoned," that tramp 
of sixteen miles was the hardest day's work except 
one that I had in Africa. There was no trail except 
along the beach and we sank into the hot sand at 
every step. Once in a while we could step on a few 
tufts of parched grass, but that gave small relief. 
The sun was blistering hot, and the heat was reflected 
from the sand like the hot breath of a furnace. In 
half an hour our clothes were '' wringing wet." At 
the end of the march every man in the party dropped 
down in the sand beside a reeking swamp; the fact 
that it was said to be full of crocodiles gave us no 
concern at all. 



268 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

The next day was different; we had to go in a 
log canoe for ninety miles against a strong current. 
Our canoe — hewn out of a log — was twenty-five feet 
long, five feet wide, and three feet deep, and it had to 
be paddled upstream in an awful sun that seemed to 
hang about ten feet above our heads. After two 
days of this, we were ready for the bush trail. 

The trail through the West African hinterland is 
not like a path through a forest : it is a small, sinuous 
tunnel through a tangled mass of foliage and creepers. 
You can get out of the trail only by cutting your way 
through, and you can see nothing except what is in 
the path. Now and then — especially in a mahogany 
region — you may have a semi-obstructed view beyond. 
By way of compensation, this tangled mass of un- 
broken green shields you from the sun and you may 
march bareheaded for hours at a time; scarcely a ray 
filters through the foliage. 

But it is hot and stifling, even in the shade. Clothes 
soon become " wringing wet " and the perspiration 
streams down the face in rivulets; a towel takes the 
place of a handkerchief on the trail. Not the heat, 
nor the sweat, nor the fatigue, nor the blistered feet, 
but the horrible thirst makes the remembrance of the 
bush-trail a nightmare. The only water is that of the 
creeks and rivers, but you gulp it down by the pint at 
every opportunity — germs and all. And, as you gulp, 
memory recalls every ice-cream-soda factory that you 
ever visited ! The native escapes this tantalizing retro- 
spect, for creek water is the coolest thing that he has. 
ever known. 



IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 269 

The Liberian bush is ahve with insects and reptiles 
and the smaller African animals, but you would never 
suspect it. The sound of an approaching caravan 
drives every living creature to cover and to silence^ — 
everything except monkeys and " driver " ants. The 
troops of monkeys take the elevator to the tops of the 
tallest trees, where they are usually safe, and the 
" driver " ants drive everything else to cover — man 
included. 

Glance down the trail. You can catch a glimpse 
of the rear of your little caravan — bare heads bobbing 
up and down as the stooped carriers step over the 
roots that intersect the path or squat low to avoid a 
creeper that hangs over the trail like a noose. You 
hear the leisurely pat of bare feet on the clay that has 
been washed with the torrents of years and tramped by 
generations of calloused soles. All at once you see the 
heads bobbing up and down rapidly, and the patter of 
the feet is fast and forcible. Curious phenomenon, is 
it not? 

By no means. You may observe it on an average 
of once an hour throughout the day. The carriers 
have encountered an army of " driver " ants crossing 
the trail; some one ahead has disturbed them and 
they have spread out along the path in battle array, 
ready to attack anything that comes. Your carriers 
are running through them and stamping off those that 
catch their feet in transit; presently you will give a 
performance of the same kind. 

When the " drivers " are crossing in regular forma- 
tion — two or three abreast, with " captains " running 



270 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

alongside as file-closers — you merely step over them 
and call out a warning to the man behind you; it is 
just like stepping over an electric wire. But if you 
fail to keep your eyes constantly on the ground, sooner 
or later you will plant your foot on the wire and dis- 
cover that it is indeed " live." The '' driver " is a 
tiny creature, not more than half an inch long, but he 
has nippers like pincers and has the disposition of a 
bull terrier. Once he gets his pincers fastened in your 
flesh, he refuses to let go until it thunders. You must 
pull him to pieces and then pull out his nippers. If 
any of them crawl up beneath your trousers, the 
trousers come off, and that quickly — no matter who's 
looking. Moreover, when the painful visitation comes 
upon you, it is useless to expect sympathy from your 
companions; this is merely one of the divertisements 
of Africa. 

The " drivers' " mission in life is to devour animal 
food — anything from a flea to an elephant. Their 
" intelligence " is remarkable and their organization 
perfect. An " army " may require an entire week to 
pass a given point, and nothing except fire will turn it 
aside. If its leaders take a notion to cross a stream or 
a swamp on the '' monkey-bridge "of poles, all human 
traffic must wade. When the scouts locate delectable 
food in a village, the army scatters out and invades 
every hut ; everything that is flesh or oil is cleaned up. 
Unfortunately, their invasion is apt to occur at night 
and you may have to camp out in the rain until the 
*' house-cleaning " is over. So imminent is this event 
that I habitually hung my shoes up at night, in reach 



IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 271 

of my cot, so that I might avoid the necessity of run- 
ning through them barefoot. If they happen to reach 
a chicken-coop before they get to your hut, you will 
get the alarm — ^but you will have to " pick " your 
chickens in a new way. I know one man who lost 
nine pigs to the '' drivers." 

Once, in running through them, my foot caught in 
a creeper and I fell sprawling in their midst. They 
covered me instantly from head to foot. My hut was 
invaded only once. I had dragged through a pouring 
rain all day, with the African fever burning in my 
veins, and had stopped in a dilapidated village. My 
cot was stretched out quickly and, without removing 
my clothes, I fell across it and went off into a stupor. 
On this night my Liberian companion (Watkins) had 
stretched his cot in the same hut. Along in the night 
he aroused me and said that the " drivers " had come. 
As he held a candle to the ground beneath my cot, I 
could see that the ground was black with them, but they 
had not started up the legs of the cot. The natives 
finally cleared the hut with firebrands. 

In some African book I have read that if you lie 
perfectly still the " drivers " will not attack you; they 
may even crawl over you — but lie perfectly still! 
Perhaps. I have met men who have faced African 
lions and bull elephants, but not yet have I seen one 
who had nerve enough to lie still with " drivers " 
crawling over his cot. Of all the atrocities of which 
Africans have been guilty, perhaps the most cruel was 
that of staking a prisoner to the ground to be eaten 
alive by '' drivers." 



272 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

The African fever is an incident of the trail less 
common than " drivers " but not less certain. It struck 
me once in two weeks on an average, and always with 
great suddenness. An unaccountable feeling of utter 
exhaustion, then a chilly sensation along the spine, 
then a flushing of the face and a slight nausea, then 
unconsciousness for a few hours, then rapid recovery — 
this is the way in which it invariably affected me. I 
had it frequently while on the coast, less frequently 
back in the bush, not at all at sea, and intermittently 
for five months after my return to New York. 

Here are two typical experiences that show how 
suddenly it strikes, even in the home-land. I left my 
office in New York at two o'clock one afternoon, feel- 
ing well. At the door, I lit a cigar. It flashed over 
me instantly that it was foolish to be burning up 
money in that way. By the time I reached the corner, 
I had decided to quit smoking — to quit gradually. At 
the second corner I determined to quit all at once. 
Before I reached the third corner I said : " Why not 
quit now?'' and I threw away the cigar. When I 
reached home I was burning up with fever and realized 
that this was the explanation of " the reform move- 
ment." After the usual routine, I came out of the 
stupor and called for my pipe. 

Again : the great Hudson-Fulton celebration in New 
York was in progress. I was standing on the corner 
at Union Square, in an ideal location. The parade 
was approaching and I was particularly anxious to 
see it. My knees began to weaken; I became sus- 
picious. A few minutes later the chills began to chase 



IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 273 

up and down my spine. I knew what would come 
next — fever and unconsciousness. Leaving the pa- 
rade, I hastened home, fell into bed with shoes and 
overcoat on — and awoke in good health the next morn- 
ing. The following day the same experience was 
repeated. 

But the African fever does not touch so lightly all 
the foreign invaders of the West Coast. The mor- 
tality has at times been frightful and it is deplorably 
high to-day. At every mission-station, for instance, 
you will find a graveyard out of all proportion to the 
white population. This in spite of frequent furloughs. 
It strikes the foreign-born Negro as quickly as the 
white man, and is especially fatal to children. The 
only white baby that I saw in West Africa was one 
which had been brought ashore from a steamer for a 
few hours. 

The schools of tropical medicine are doing much to 
eradicate this ancient scourge, and quinine has done 
more. But it still remains true that every enterprise in 
West Africa — missionary, commercial, or govern- 
ment — must keep constantly in mind the fact that its 
field-manager may at any moment be carried away 
with fever — and must have an " understudy." 

Yes, I know that " African fever " is a pernicious 
form of malaria; that the mosquito is its cause, and 
that quinine is a preventive. But listen: the mos- 
quitoes were so rare that I used my mosquito-net only 
to keep spiders and tarantulas from dropping off the 
ceiling in my face during the night; and I began taking 
five grains of quinine daily a month before I reached 



274 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

the coast. Moreover, I had served in Porto Rico dur- 
ing a military campaign and without a hospital record. 
Also, all my bodily functions remained normal in 
Africa. Yet I had the fever. I fear that the prob- 
lem of the white man's health on the West Coast — 
anywhere between French West Africa and German 
Southwest Africa and along all the rivers — is yet far 
from being solved. 

Worn with the long march and wet with perspira- 
tion, you reach a cleared space in the midst of which 
is what looks like a group of weather-beaten haystacks. 
It is an African village and one of those " stacks " is 
your " hotel." 

But you must sit in your wet clothes until much 
palaver is over. Then the king leads you to one of 
the best huts and the tenants are hustled out, bag and 
baggage. One of your boys builds a fire on the floor 
in the centre (never mind the smoke!) and you pre- 
pare to change your clothes. As a hint to the merry 
villagers who are crowding into the hut, you take off 
a garment or two. The crowd moves — but moves 
closer! You take off something else, and the excite- 
ment increases: your interpreter explains that the 
spectators are wondering how much of you is white! 
To their bitter disappointment, you send the interpreter 
to the king and he clears the hut. The opportunity of 
a bush lifetime is gone! 




YOUNG MATRONS OF THE LIBERIAN HINTERLAND 



XX 

HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 

NO particular '^ divinity " hedged Bamboo, king 
of the Boporo country, as he trudged into the 
circle of my African acquaintances — the first 
potentate of the bush to get on my calling-list. 

To begin with. Bamboo was barefoot, and it is diffi- 
cult to be impressively kingly without shoes — espe- 
cially when the toes spread out to a distance much 
wider than the foot. Moreover, the royal head was 
covered with a broad-brimmed, black hat which was 
much too large, and previous experience had never 
prepared me for the sight of a real king whose head- 
dress makes his ears flop. He wore also a cloth of 
dingy white, which dropped from his shoulders to his 
knees. To American eyes he was simply a very black 
Negro in a soiled nightshirt. 

But Bamboo took himself very seriously. In the 
first place, he is a '' paramount chief " — that is, a 
lord of lords and king of kings throughout the whole 
Boporo country. He has also the prestige of a proud 
hneage; he is ahead of all the kings of Liberia, for 
he is the grandson of King Boatswain, a war-chief 
who once saved the little band of colonists at Mon- 
rovia from annihilation. In remembrance of that 

275 



276 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

great service the Liberian Government has recognized 
Bamboo's claim to the chieftainship of his grand- 
father's tribes, and the President decorated him with 
a large silver heart, which Bamboo wears suspended 
from a chain about his neck. The inscription reads, 
in essence, " When this you see, remember Boat- 
swain." It is Bamboo's proudest possession, his gold- 
hilted sword and his wives not excepted. 

Physically, he is one of the finest specimens of Af- 
rican manhood on the West Coast. Stockily built, 
his muscular legs are in striking contrast to the spind- 
ling shanks of the average West African Negro. He 
would make a fine man to travel with a moving-van, 
for nature evidently built him for the job of carrying 
furniture up several flights of stairs. But I believe 
that this proud chieftain has never been known to 
engage in any exercise quite so violent. Bamboo also 
has a moustache, which is somewhat of a wonder in 
this land of scant beards. 

The King's English vocabulary is not larger than 
that of the average parrot, so our chance meeting in 
the street was marked neither by feast of reason nor 
flow of soul. He had just come in from the 
bush to see the '' Big Daddy " — that is, the Presi- 
dent of Liberia — presumably because he needed the 
money. 

Some weeks later I had the opportunity of seeing 
Bamboo in a local setting. It was at the funeral of 
King Wobeh, when half-a-dozen royal personages 
were on the scene. Figuratively speaking, he fell upon 
my neck in welcome, for by all African precedents 



HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 277 

I should have had a generous present of very bad 
gin to help the festivities along — for a king's funeral 
is not a particularly solemn occasion in Africa. 

The five days that I spent in the village of To- 
toquelli taught me something of Bamboo's character 
and very much about his reputation as a wild bull 
of Bashan. Bamboo of the moustache and vigorous 
muscles is a ladies' man, be it understood, and when 
the ardour of his wooing is at its height he overrides 
the laws of the bush in a way that ordinarily leads 
to the grave encircled with gin bottles — and that is 
where Bamboo would now be resting were it not for 
the favour of the government and the silver heart 
that marks him out as the paramount chief. 

On the second night of my stay in Totoquelli, Bam- 
boo precipitately took unto himself a wife in the per- 
son of a girl not yet out of the bush school — and this 
without the formality of getting the consent of the 
parents or even of the girl. No particular fuss was 
made about it until the next morning. Then the girl 
ran to the parental hut and raised the thatched roof 
with her story. All the kings and the counsellors were 
gathered together under the palaver-tree, and every 
one of them could tell of previous happenings of the 
same sort in which Bamboo had figured. 

The royal culprit was promptly summoned to ap- 
pear before the palaver. The impetuous Bamboo re- 
plied that since he was paramount chief and also the 
friend of the President, the palaver might descend 
into a region much hotter than the equator, four days 
to the south. His logical argument was that all the 



278 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

people were legall}^ his property, and that he could do 
with any of them as he pleased. 

The palaver went on just the same, without the 
personal attendance of the " prisoner at the bar." 
The evidence was discussed in great detail; the ver- 
dict was "guilty"; the sentence was that Bamboo 
should pay a fine equal to the value of seven slave- 
boys. In hard cash this meant 7 X $15 = $105. At 
a pinch, Bamboo could not have raised more than a 
couple of shillings in real money, so he rose in his 
dignity and appealed unto Csesar. Moreover, he bolted 
that night for Monrovia, in order that he might state 
the case to the President in advance of the report of 
the district commissioner. It is perhaps needless to 
say that the two reports differed widely. The " Big 
Daddy," as is his custom in such cases^ settled the 
quarrel between him and the village by compromise. 

In spite of the fact that Bamboo is a capable Negro 
and a general good fellow, his future is foggy with 
doubt. When I left Totoquelli his people were openly 
discussing the advisability of giving him poison. 
Sooner or later this tragic fate of the bush is almost 
sure to overtake him. 

My next king was a modern example of the truth 
of the old proverb, '' Train up a king's son in the 
way he should go, and when he is king away he'll go 
from it." George Settlemore is the Christian name 
that was given him in a mission school when he was 
a boy, but the name is practically all that is left of 
his mission training. I found nothing approximating 



HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 9.19 

a Sunday-school in George's village. The nearest 
thing to it was one woman with real clothes on. 
George reigns in the village of Wai-Singa. He is a 
sleepy-looking old man, w^th a dreamy, far-away look 
in his eyes, but the politician who wants to be the next 
President of Liberia should first " see " George. 

A " ward leader " who had helped in the election of 
President Barclay told me an interesting story of 
George's part in the triumphant result. To vote in 
Liberia, remember, a man must be a landowner. This 
condition properly shuts out 2,000,000 natives of 
the bush, but the political party now in the saddle has 
worked out a very clever scheme by which the provi- 
sion may be evaded in some cases. Wai-Singa was 
one of the cases. All the land adjacent to the vil- 
lage was formerly deeded to the tribe, and the adult 
men of the village were considered thereby to become 
landowners — that is, voters. It is perhaps unneces- 
sary to say that an African village votes as one man — 
and that man is the chief. 

It became part of King George's duty, therefore, to 
marshal his men at the polls for the first time. There 
was never any doubt in his mind, or in the mind of 
anybody else, as to the unanimity of the vote, but it 
was evidently not very clear to George just how many 
votes were proper on such an occasion. 

Wai-Singa, it should be explained, is a mud village 
of about thirty huts. There are several little " half- 
towns " that are tributary to it, and also a fringe of 
civilized Liberian farmers in the same district, which 
is known as Mount Coffee. When the votes were 



280 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

counted it was found that this district (with the aid 
of George's amateur voters) had turned in more bal- 
lots for President Barclay than Monrovia and Cape 
Palmas combined. And yet there are some people who 
think that the African is slow to acquire the ways of 
civilization ! 

George has a thirst for fire-water that would draw 
the cork out of a bottle, but he is a good-natured, hos- 
pitable old man, with all his faults. My first night in 
an African hut was spent in his village, and he gave 
me the best that he had. Before taking my leave I 
expressed a wish that he might get all of his wives to- 
gether and let me make a photograph of the Royal 
Family of Wai-Singa. The idea pleased him much, 
and there was a commotion throughout the entire vil- 
lage as he went to sound the " assembly " call and to 
get his hat — for no African chief would ever will- 
ingly pose for his picture without his hat. When all 
was ready for the picture, I found a large and varied 
assortment of African beauties, as many as could con- 
veniently get on my film, but George explained apolo- 
getically that a number of his wives were scattered 
around in the neighbouring half-towns, and could not 
be gathered together on such short notice. 

Third, in the order of time, comes Jah-Golah, genial 
but over- fond of rum. The circumstances under which 
I met him are more interesting than the chief him- 
self. 

In the hinterland of Liberia, shortly before my 
arrival, a native trader had been found murdered. 




THE FUNERAL FEAST AT TOTOOUELLI 




THE ROYAL FAMILY OF WAISINGA 



HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 281 

When the crime was reported to the government at 
Monrovia, the king of the tribe (Jah-Golah) was in- 
structed to find the murderer and send him to the 
coast for trial. After a few weeks, Jah-Golah turned 
in the criminal's name, but was sorry to say that he 
had escaped from the tribe. He happened to be a rela- 
tive of the King's chief wife. 

The government decided to impress the entire tribe 
with the majesty of the law. The superintendent of 
the county was ordered to place the King and his 
head-men under arrest and, if necessary, hold them as 
prisoners until the murderer should be produced. 

In other colonies, a detachment of the Frontier 
Force would have been sent on this errand. The 
Liberian official, however, entrusted a half -naked na- 
tive (who receives a salary of $5 a month and boards 
himself) with the job of going four days back in the 
bush to arrest a king and three head-men. The only 
force which he had at his hand was a small Liberian 
flag, which answers the same purpose as the silver- 
plated star of a rural deputy-sheriff. The fact that 
Jah-Golah is on the list of kings with whom I have 
hobnobbed is evidence of the success of the native 
policeman. The King and his three head-men were 
exhibits in the case when I reached the home of the 
superintendent. 

This is a very different method from that which was 
used in Southern Nigeria about the same time. In 
that case, however, it was a white trader who had 
been murdered. The local government sent a " puni- 
tive expedition " to impress the tribe with the majesty 



9.S2 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

of British law. The village nearest to the scene of 
the crime was burned, and 157 natives were slain. 
So reported a Southern Nigerian official who was on 
leave of absence. 

The King of Wodee was not at home when I called, 
but his head-man decided that the honour of the visit 
called for a royal present. He gave an imperative or- 
der to a very small (and very naked) urchin, and a 
very small chicken was chased all over the village 
before it was attached to my luggage. But I found 
the King in the next town, where he keeps his 
" medicine-house " — for he is a wizard as well as a 
potentate. 

He was delighted to see me, and much pleased 
when he heard about the chicken. That was not 
enough honour, however; I must rest until he had a 
bowl of " dumboy " prepared. " Dumboy " is not on 
the bill-of-fare at Martin's, I believe. It is cassava 
pounded in a mortar; it looks like putty and tastes 
like dough. The King thought it a good joke that 
the white man should try to chew it instead of swal- 
lowing it like a capsule. 

In Totoquelli, presiding over the funeral of its late 
ruler, I met old King Sow — 2l stately specimen of the 
African chief. Though at least sixty years of age, 
he has the fire of youth in his eye, and his conduct 
of affairs shows that he has many of the qualities of 
leadership. He is more than six feet in height, slightly 
stooped, and his hair and scant beard are white. His 



HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 283 

hair is plaited close to the scalp and ornamented with 
charms sewed up in leather cases; his beard consists 
mainly of one little twist of braid about the size of 
a lead-pencil and five inches long. It hangs under- 
neath his chin like an icicle, but curving to the front. 
He is a Mandingo chief and in many respects re- 
minded me of an American Indian. His dress is 
quite unpretentious. He usually wears a robe of na- 
tive cloth, striped blue and white like an awning. His 
bare feet are encased in sandals, with a leather button 
on top of each foot. His head is usually bare or 
shielded by an umbrella, but when I first saw him it 
was covered with a derby hat, yellow with age. He 
has a silver- topped staff of office, but generally carries 
a calf's tail as his sceptre, using it also to brush away 
an occasional fly. His chief glory, however, is a low 
chair covered with leopard-skin and decorated with 
monkey-skin. An attendant always carries it behind 
him when he walks abroad. 

The old man showed me many courtesies, but he 
drew the line when I asked him to sell me his leopard- 
skin throne. Had it been merely one of his wives — 
that would have been a much simpler request. 

The only mean trick that he played was intended as 
a great favour. The night before I left his village, 
coastward-bound, he came to the hut where I lay sick 
and said that he was sending his favourite nephew as 
head-man over the carriers, and the nephew would be 
my devoted slave until I reached the big water. I 
gave him my most gracious thanks and snapped fingers 
with the donor by way of appreciation. 



284< THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

The nephew went, but he proved to be the most 
no-count rascal in my troupe of imbeciles and rogues. 
The fact that he reached the big water alive and well 
is a testimonial to my patience and long-suffering. 

Passing by the monarchs of less interest and those 
who are mentioned elsewhere, I am sorry to say that 
I met the King of Bowrah. I had been warned against 
Bowrah and my guide had implored me to avoid it. 
He assured me that the heart of the King was not 
white and that he would give us no " chop." More- 
over, my best carrier (who belonged to the same 
tribe) made much of a stubbed toe and refused to go 
on. But to Bowrah I went. 

It is on the bank of a small river, and its one log 
canoe was on that side. While we waited for the 
ferryman, we heard the war-drum sending some sort 
of a " wireless " to the men out at *' the farm." By 
the time we had crossed (on the instalment plan), all 
the villagers were among those present — all except the 
King. They said that he was off in the bush, but 
we had an idea that he would hear in a few minutes 
all that we had to say. 

The atmosphere of Bowrah was ominous from the 
first. The men were an evil-looking bunch, and nearly 
every man had a shotgun — loaded probably with 
pieces of broken pots. Besides, every gun was capped 
and cocked. With their hair and beards twisted into 
little cords, they looked like the Assyrians that are 
pictured on the monuments. They gave us the huts 
that we asked for, but placed me at one end of the 



HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 285 

village, Watkins (my Liber ian companion) at the 
other end, and our carriers somewhere between. Still 
the King remained secluded. 

Our entrance interrupted a cruel execution. A 
" sea-boy," returning from a two years' absence, had 
found his wife living with another man. He had 
demanded a palaver and the man had been condemned. 
The " sea-boy " was to do the job. It was the law 
of the bush. The cold chills chased one another up 
and down my spine when I saw the vindictive manner 
in which the injured husband went about his task. He 
crossed the culprit's ankles and tied them with rattan, 
drawing the knot until the rattan cut into the flesh; 
the hands were tied behind the back in the same way. 
Then he left the man on the ground, disappeared into 
his hut, and returned with an armful of tough withes 
and a raw-hide whip. Not until then did we realize 
that the culprit was to be flogged to death. Still no 
King. 

The '' sea-boy," with a wicked grin on his face, 
strutted up and down, preparing his withes. Then a 
woman raised an uproar and a fierce palaver followed. 
In the midst of it, the mother of the " sea-boy " came 
running with two chunks of fire and tried to reach 
the helpless victim with them. The other women held 
her back. The palaver ended in a decision in favour 
of the prisoner; he was unbound and got up. 

Then came another palaver, and the man was bound 
a second time. The grin came back on the " sea- 
boy's " face. A second time the woman raised a point 
of order, and appealed to the old men of the village. 



286 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

They sustained her and released the prisoner. The 
next day^ when we were miles from Bowrah, my guide 
told me that the men were afraid to proceed while I 
was in the village, and that the flogging had merely 
been postponed. 

All afternoon they kept us on the anxious seat, and 
we could not get at the King. One old Assyrian, who 
spoke a little English, stuck to me like a leech. He 
wanted to know the contents of my "loads;" he 
wanted to borrow my revolver to shoot monkeys; he 
wanted to take me down to the river to bathe; and 
he tried to trap me into what I knew were unpar- 
donable sins in the bush. All the while, in a hut 
nearby, an incessant tom-tom indicated that some mys- 
terious rites were in progress. 

Night came, and with it came the King — a meek 
old Negro. He insisted that we must spend another 
day, but I took much care to explain w^hy it was im- 
possible. As he left my hut, he solemnly promised, 
for the fourth time, that he w^ould furnish the one 
carrier that I needed. Watkins paused long enough 
to let me know that he didn't like the look of things; 
they had tried to borrow his gun, too ! 

For the first time in the bush, I barred the door of 
my hut. Sure enough, my Assyrian tried to get in 
about lo P.M., but there was a heavy beam across it. 
He went away, but the whole town was in a pande- 
monium until long past midnight — drums beating, men 
singing, women yelling in terror, and dogs howling. 
I had no thought of going to sleep; every moment I 
expected trouble, so I kept my clothes on and my re- 



HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 287 

volver at hand. The next morning I learned that Wat- 
kins had done the same. 

At six o'clock we lined up the carriers, and for once 
there was no lagging back. We asked the King for 
his carrier and found that we had been tricked. No 
carrier, not even a boy, would go ! It w^as one of three 
clever schemes to prevent our leaving. Also, every 
man in town was there with his gun. I called Wat- 
kins aside and told him that we must get out of Bow- 
rah, even if we had to fight. He agreed, for the fiend- 
ish grin of the " sea-boy " was yet before his eyes. 
We passed the word to the carriers and immediately 
told the King good-bye. The Assyrians were so sur- 
prised at our leaving without breakfast that they had 
no plan; some of them straggled along after us, and 
we did not breathe freely for an hour. 

All that day, breakfastless and without food-sup- 
plies, we marched through a forest that had no human 
habitation and nothing that could be eaten. Darkness 
came upon us before we reached the next village, faint 
and fagged but thankful to the stars that we were out 
of Bowrah. It was Easter Sunday, and I grimly com- 
pared our "procession" with those at home! 

The suffragette movement has not reached the West 
Coast hinterland, but I found one town that is already 
ruled by a woman — and she is a Queen of Clubs. 
The story of how it happened is a romance of the 
African bush. 

Twenty-five years ago, when the inter-tribal wars 
were laying waste the Liberian hinterland, a Mandingo 



288 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

town near the Sierra Leone frontier was wrecked. 
Shambo, one of the King's wives, objected to becom- 
ing a part of the loot, so she took to the bush and 
finally reached a large island in the upper St. Paul 
River, where King Hawkwell had a town that was 
safe from attack — because the bush-men back from the 
river are afraid of the demons that swarm in the 
mists. 

Shambo was a comely young copper-skin, and old 
Hawkwell gladly added her to his collection. It was 
not long before she had him twisted around her finger, 
and the old man's loyalty to her outlived his life. 
When he began to feel that the end was approaching, 
he worked out a plan (or was it Shambo's?) whereby 
she would be on Easy Street after he was gone. Gath- 
ering together some other Mandingan refugees, he 
took them back about four hours into the bush and 
laid out the nucleus of a new village, which is now 
called Shambo Town. Here his favourite was pro- 
claimed Queen, and here " Mammy " Shambo rules 
to this day. 

I strolled into Shambo Town one day in advance 
of my carriers; I had an interpreter with me, but he 
could not remain over-night. " Mammy " had one of 
her queenliest huts ready for me, for she had heard 
that I was a white " medicine-man " who could cure 
her many ailments. She met me in partriarchal fash- 
ion, leaning on the top of her staff, and her wrinkled 
and haggard face beamed a genuine welcome. 

After a royal supper of fricasseed chicken, I sent 
the interpreter to escort Her Serene Royal Highness 



HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS S89 

to my hut for medical treatment. All the village came 
with her to observe the white man's incantations; in 
the dim light of a single candle, I played the game with 
all the solemnity of a mullah-man. 

When I showed " Mammy " how to stick out her 
tongue, all the villagers stuck out theirs, also. They 
looked in wondering silence while I put my finger on 
" Mammy's " wrist and counted; and they hardly 
breathed while the thermometer was in the royal 
mouth. The examination showed that I could really 
do nothing for the old lady in one night, except to 
slow down her heart — which was pulsing at an alarm- 
ing rate — and to leave her some beneficent quinine. 
The giving of medicine to an African monarch is a 
ticklish business; if anything happens, from any cause, 
the bush-people are very quick to fix the blame, for 
it is a land heavy with suspicion, and the giving of 
poison is one of the commonplaces of society. Before 
the interpreter left, therefore, in the hearing of all 
the village, the white " medicine-man " was careful to 
explain what he proposed to do : 

" ' Mammy ' be wise woman, for true, for true. 
But she have to get old to know all dem tings. * Mam- 
my's ' heart been running away — faster, faster, faster. 
It now run like big rock rolling down hill. It make 
her head hurt; it make her want drink water; it make 
her tired. 

" Medicine-man no give ' Mammy ' new heart. He 
only stop it, so it not go too fast — so her head no 
hurt, so she sleep, so she not be tired." 

It was pathetic to see how they hung upon every 



290 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

word as it filtered through the interpreter's Hps, for 
they seemed to think that the white man controlled 
the issues of life and death. I drew out a small bot- 
tle and placed two white tablets in '' Mammy's " 
leathery palm. The interpreter told her to swallow 
them, and she obeyed without the slightest hesitation. 
My royal patient was better in the morning, and 
correspondingly grateful. But the white " medicine- 
man " waited in vain for his breakfast — waited in vain 
also for his lunch. I was both famished and furious 
when the interpreter returned late in the evening. I 
sent him in haste to the Royal Presence to demand 
the wherefore. He came back with " Mammy's " 
profuse apology — also with a bowl of " chop." No- 
body had told her to provide me with food, and she 
had supposed my black box to be full of it! 

" By special request," I am influenced to mention 
the benevolent King of Dee-ah-bo, who showed me a 
new way of getting fun out of tobacco. He had a 
large (spiral) snail-shell, nearly as large as a small 
teapot. Into this he put leaf-tobacco, poured water 
on it, and macerated it until he had a thick nicotine 
bouillon. I could not imagine what he intended to do 
with it. 

When all was ready he threw back his head, placed 
the " spout " to his nostril, inhaled deeply — and the 
juice filled the nostril. The method is not copyrighted ! 



XXI 
MAKING KING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 

IT was a piece of good news to me, and I confess 
it without shame, when the tidings came that the 
King of TotoquelH was dead — not that I had any 
personal grudge against the old man, but because I 
had long cherished a desire to assist in the last sad 
rites of an important native chief. Since a death is 
a prerequisite of a funeral, it might just as well be that 
of the King of TotoquelH. Even if the old man and 
I had been mutual friends, the messenger would have 
brought no sudden shock of grief, for the news of 
the King's death had percolated through the African 
bush at least a week before. The formal announce- 
ment at the present time merely meant that his funeral 
was beginning — and this was the good news. An Af- 
rican king's funeral is often long deferred; there is 
the case of the King Pomoporo, whose name (''a pot 
of pepper soup") is a brevet received on the field 
of battle; he died more than a year ago, but his funeral 
notice had not yet been peddled among the villages. 

I was in the Liberian hinterland, four days back 
from the coast, a region where the government levies 
no taxes, where the native chiefs reign supreme, where 
the only statutes are the laws of the bush, and the 



292 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

only courts are the excited tribunals in the shade of 
the palaver-tree. A couple of English prospectors, an 
English rubber-trader, and an American missionary 
compose the white population all the way back to the 
French frontier. 

After some sweltering days and restless nights in 
mud huts, I was enjoying the hospitality of the gov- 
ernment station at Dobli Zulu; the official hut was 
also of mud and thatch, but it had the luxury of a 
porch large enough to admit the hammocks of palm 
fibre which the industrious Pessi women sell for a 
shilling or two. In one of these I lazily smoked my 
pipe and marvelled that Broadway and I had been 
able to get along smoothly without each other for so 
many months. The world was very, very far away 
and I had not the remotest idea of what had been hap- 
pening for weeks — ^and, strange to say, very little 
curiosity. When this indolent reverie was interrupted 
by the announcement of a king's funeral^ I welcomed 
the messenger as gladly as if he had been a roll of 
newspapers from home. Without delay I packed up 
my luggage and checked it for Totoquelli via five 
stout-backed carriers, devoutly hoping that if any one 
of the covetous crew lost himself in the bush, it would 
not be the boy whom I had entrusted with my camera 
and my daily quinine. 

It was a tramp of six hours through " the big 
bush/' where the tangled vegetation is so dense that 
the narrow, serpentine trail is continually shaded from 
the killing sun. Here and there we crossed elephant 




VAI GIRLS IN A MONROVIA STREET 



MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 293 

trails — wide swaths where the momentum of the huge 
beasts on their way to watering-places had cut through 
a jungle impenetrable by man — and once we found 
fresh tracks in the mud. During this long walk I im- 
proved the opportunity to inquire into the life of the 
dead monarch. 

King Wobeh, whose full name was Wobeh-Keekee, 
did not come into the world with a royal spoon in his 
mouth. His father was a trader named Gahway, an 
itinerant merchant who got the cloth, cutlasses, guns, 
powder, salt, tobacco, and rum of the coast and ped- 
dled them out in little dribs as he passed from village 
to village. His profits were as much as two hundred 
per cent., perhaps, and the currency which he received 
for his goods included slaves, wives, goats, ivory, fowls, 
rice, and anything else that might be sold at the coast 
or along the way. Generally his coastward caravan 
was twice as long as that with which he had gone out, 
but everybody was satisfied in this region, where even 
now there is only one paltry store within a three days' 
march. 

Naturally Gahway came into contact with the outer 
fringe of civilization — a crude imitation, it is true, 
but superior to anything that he had ever seen. He 
appreciated the conveniences which it had to offer: a 
man could produce a state of exhilaration and forget- 
fulness so much more quickly with rum than with 
palm-wine. Gahway also became well acquainted with 
the chiefs throughout a large area in the unexplored 
hinterland, and in his day the war-drums kept the na- 



294 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

tives huddled together in the large towns of the war- 
rior chiefs. 

One of the most important of these chiefs was 
Bangaquelli, King of Totoquelli, in what is now 
known as the Boporo country. Bangaquelli's chief 
claim to distinction is that he had the famous King 
Boatswain for his father; locally he is remembered 
more for the number of rum jugs which he emptied. 

Now Gahway had a very promising boy named 
Wobeh, and he wanted to give him a good send-off 
in life. There were no schools except the " devil- 
bush " and boys had to pick up their training wherever 
they could find it. Gahway, therefore, gave the 
keeping of young Wobeh into the hands of King 
Bangaquelli. He must have had more confidence in 
the boy than in the king, for Bangaquelli had made 
a sorry mess of it with his own sons. 

Young Wobeh sauntered into Totoquelli with one 
eye on the main chance, and he walked not in the ways 
of Bangaquelli's sons. He came into the King's house- 
hold very much as the shepherd boy David came into 
the life of King Saul. Little by little he was entrusted 
with responsibilities that Bangaquelli would not risk 
with his own sons, and Wobeh soon showed that he 
had inherited his father's aptitude for business. 
Bangaquelli went on his way to the dogs at a rapid 
rate, but Wobeh kept his property and his town from 
following him — kept them also from the King's 
harum-scarum boys. He must have had a level head 
and a way of winning the favour of the tribe, else the 
jealousy of the royal household would have led him up 



MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 295 

to the poison-cup that made Socrates famous. The 
result was that when Bangaquelli came to die he did 
a very unusual thing, the wisest act of his reign: he 
committed into Wobeh's hands his entire estate — 
wives, sons, town, everything — to be administered by 
him. This decree of the dying king was readily ac- 
cepted by the tribe, for all Totoquelli knew that 
Bangaquelli's sons could not administer anything ex- 
cept gin. 

It seems that Wobeh executed the trust with fidelity 
and honesty — as honesty goes in the bush. Certainly 
he administered the estate with shrewd ability. 
Whenever one of Bangaquelli's widows showed a 
tendency to be unruly or reckless with her affections, 
she was promptly converted into goats and other cur- 
rency. Every dollar's worth of property left by 
Bangaquelli was made to grow, and the town of To- 
toquelli also grew apace under the nominal kingship 
of Bangaquelli's brother. All went well until a series 
of inter-tribal wars began to devastate the whole region 
and the dummy King proved unequal to the emer- 
gency. The town of Totoquelli was taken by a hostile 
tribe and burned to the ground, Wobeh escaping with 
such wreckage as could be hurriedly carried away on 
men's backs. He made no stop until he reached the 
narrow coast-belt, where he could live under the shel- 
ter of the little Liberian Government. 

Some links in the chain of events are missing just 
here. The devastating wars between rival chiefs con- 



296 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

tinued intermittently until the Liberian Government 
arranged a big palaver on neutral ground. To it came 
the vi^arrior-kings v^ith thousands of their wild re- 
tainers, armed v^ith everything from a rusty spear to 
a muzzle-loading brass cannon that had been looted 
from some hapless v^reck. For days the most eloquent 
spokesmen of each tribe told, with violent gesticula- 
tion, of wrongs that cried for vengeance — and the 
two American Negroes who represented the Liberian 
President patiently puffed away at their pipes, waiting 
for the African temperament to exhaust its fury in 
oratory. When the lull came, they walked into the 
centre of the great circle and explained how anxious 
" the Big Daddy " at Monrovia was that they should 
stop killing one another and quit burning the towns 
and destroying the " farms." Then they told how 
much gin and tobacco and cloth and gunpowder the 
Big Daddy would give each year to every king who 
put away the war-drum and kept the roads open. This 
was the convincing argument. Permanent peace was 
agreed upon and the compact duly sealed by splitting 
in two a white chicken — and that peace has remained 
unbroken to this day. 

Then Wobeh was instructed to return and rebuild 
the town of Totoquelli. The unsettled state of the 
whole region gave him his chance, and on the tortu- 
ous current of African politics he floated into a king- 
dom. The original town was gone, so there was noth- 
ing for Bangaquelli's sons to rule over. Wobeh left 
them to their own devices and undertook the task of 
town-building on his own account. Selecting a site 



MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 297 

near the base of a beautiful hill, he built a village and 
gave it the original name of Totoquelli. 

While Wobeh's star was in the ascendency, Death 
came out of the foggy bush and laid its hand upon 
him. A famous mullah-man was called to make in- 
cantations, and the local " sand-cutter " brought out 
all his paraphernalia of divination and peeped impres- 
sively into the future. That which Wobeh really 
needed, a good physician, does not exist in this region. 
The mullah and the " sand-cutter " gave an unfa- 
vourable prognosis, so the suffering King was prepared 
for his departure in the weird manner prescribed by 
the law of the bush. 

Secretly and in the dead of night he was carried 
back into the bush to an obscure " half-town " called 
Goomah, no woman being allowed to know his where- 
abouts. Courtesy to the mullah and the " sand- 
cutter " demanded that Wobeh should promptly pass 
into the unknown^ but the old man held on to life with 
his characteristic tenacity. It was several weeks be- 
fore the news was quietly brought to Totoquelli that 
its founder was dead. The information was passed 
on to Boporo, and King Sow came over to take charge 
of the town until all its palavers were settled. Prepa- 
rations for the burying were then taken in hand. 

The funeral of an African chief follows the law of 
the bush implicitly, but the details vary in different 
parts of the West Coast. The proceedings in this 
case extended over a period of about three weeks, so I 
was not present all the time. 



298 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

First, Wobeh's body was removed from the hut 
where he had died and placed in an '' open kitchen " 
in Goomah. These " kitchens " are merely large huts 
without walls; or, rather, with walls about three feet 
high. The roof is of thatch and the floor of clay. 
In the centre of one of these kitchens a shallow grave 
was dug. The feet were bound together; the arms 
were extended down the body and the hands bound 
together; by means of a strong stick placed between 
hands and feet, the body was placed in the grave and 
lightly covered. After it had lain there for two days 
it was taken up by night and carried to Totoquelli, 
where it was again placed in a shallow grave, but 
in a hut where no woman could bring ill-luck by look- 
ing upon it. (The law of the bush shuts out all 
women from any approach to the dead.) Then the 
family and the town began to make ready for the 
obsequies, formal notices being sent to all the kings 
within two days' walk, in order that they might come 
(with gifts) and assist in ''making Wobeh's heart 
lie down." 

^ ^ *jl ^ ^ 

The final ceremonies began three days before I 
reached Totoquelli and continued for five days there- 
after. First the body was again lifted from the grave 
and *' laid out " in an open kitchen, carefully screened 
from the view of the women. The King's wives were 
then segregated in another kitchen and intrusted with 
the duty of making great lamentation — and the Af- 
rican woman has exceptional gifts in that line. Then 
the head of the "devil bush" (he is a great func- 



MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 299 

tionary in West Africa) came into the village to 
announce the King's death — a performance on a par 
with the formal notification given to a Presidential 
nominee by a committee from a national convention. 
The " devil bush " is a sort of combination of secret 
society and a boys' boarding school. It is a collec- 
tion of huts hidden away in the bush which women 
must avoid on penalty of death. Here are collected 
most of the boys of the community and they remain 
in seclusion for a period varying from three to six 
years, being taught some sense and much nonsense. 
The grip of superstition is so strong that the head of 
the bush becomes a great man in the tribe, and death 
awaits any woman who looks upon his face. To- 
toquelli's '' devil " preceded his entrance into the town 
by an unearthly yell, which w^as the signal for all the 
women and girls (and every man not a member of 
the "devil bush") to secrete themselves. Then with 
a series of ventriloquistic yelps he came into the centre 
of the towm, announced the death of Wobeh, ordered 
the funeral to proceed, and vanished into the bush. 
Then the real noise began. 

Wobeh's women and children reassembled in their 
kitchen and resumed their mournful wail — and Wo- 
beh's family was large enough to be heard. Mean- 
while, for two days and nights the men of the town 
made it lively for the spirits of evil that were sup- 
posed to be hovering in the bush that surrounds the 
village. Guns heavily charged with powder were fired 
at intervals throughout the entire time to frighten 
away the shapes of evil. Most of the night was 



800 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

given over to the beating of drums, the women and 
younger men dancing in procession all over the 
town. 

Under ordinary circumstances the body of the King 
would have lain in the kitchen for four days, but the 
intrigues of some of the neighbouring chiefs caused the 
two eldest sons of Wobeh to make a coup d'etat. 
King Sow had insisted on burying the body in his own 
town of Boporo, and a messenger had come from 
Yavaropay, a great war-chief now on the decline, ask- 
ing that Wobeh be interred in his country. But the 
family of the deceased and the head-men of Totoquelli 
were insistent that the proper tomb of Wobeh was 
the town that he had founded, and a lively palaver was 
in sight. 

Back of all this clamour for the body of Wobeh was 
the bush law that a king's people must dwell near his 
grave and watch over it. If any of the neighbouring 
kings could succeed in burying Wobeh in his village, 
Totoquelli would be broken up and the other town 
would become twice as large in a very short time. 
Wobeh's sons met the emergency with firmness and 
determination. They arose on the second night and 
quietly slipped the body into a permanent grave under 
the '' medicine "-tree in front of Wobeh's house — a 
grave from which he could not again be moved. Into 
the earth with him went a plentiful supply of things 
intended for his use in the other world — cloth, pow- 
der, kettles, cutlasses, gin, etc. — about a hundred dol- 
lars' worth in all. The Totoquellians were determined 
that their King should be a great man in the unknown 



MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 301 

world to which his spirit would go when the funeral 
was over. 

The funeral was at this stage when my little cara- 
van straggled into Totoquelli just before noon. The 
presence of the District Commissioner who accom- 
panied me placed me at once on an easy footing. Had 
I come alone, a stranger, I should have been shelved 
in some hut until the local " sand-cutter " shuffled 
around in his junk-shop to see whether my coming 
meant weal or woe to the spirit of Wobeh. As it was, 
we were at once ushered into the presence of King 
Sow, the master of ceremonies, and of King Bamboo, 
whom I already knew. Our coming was cordially wel- 
comed; presumably on account of the case of gin which 
we did not have with us! 

When night closed in on my first day and the moon 
began to shed its soft light through hazy clouds, the 
night's dancing began. There was no undercurrent 
of sadness in it; everybody was literally ''out for a 
good time." The dancers were drummed up in groups, 
the drummers shuffling all through the town to or- 
ganize a procession. A second crowd was gathered 
under the leadership of a man with a stringed instru- 
ment made from a calabash, and eventually a third 
group shuffled along to the rattle of a calabash strung 
with iron rings. I can close my eyes on any moonlight 
night and hear it yet — the sound being that of a gourd 
half-fflled with dried peas. 

After these separate groups had paraded the 
" streets " to their satisfaction, chanting all the while. 



302 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

they united in a large circle near Wobeh's grave, 
drums in the centre, and began a song and dance that 
could have been heard for a mile. This was kept up 
nearly all the night, the chanting being varied from 
time to time, first in one dialect, then in another, and 
then in another. At times the dancers chased one 
another around the circle in a lock-step; then they 
would join hands and sway their bodies back and 
forth, bowing at regular intervals to the drummers. 
Men, women, and children were mixed up indiscrimi- 
nately. There was nothing that resembled anything 
American — no couples, no cake- walking, no jig danc- 
ing. There was a quaint harmony in their chant- 
ing, for their voices are soft and musical, but the 
performance soon grew monotonous, except to 
them. During the exercises some of the women 
of the deceased spread their mats on the grave 
and lay down to witness the dancing. They took 
a keen interest in it, at times laughing and ap- 
plauding. 

My second day was rather quiet. A big palaver 
was called in the morning to sit in judgment on King 
Bamboo, who had seriously sinned against the native 
law. Though technically king of the whole country, 
he was ordered to pay a fine of seven slaves. The day 
was further marked by the arrival of Dookbah, King 
of Maraquelli, with his wife and daughter. Dookbah 
is a man of about forty and is every inch a king, 
though he does not look it when he puts on his Euro- 
pean hat. His wife was easily the leading lady of 
the court circle and was, indeed, the most stylish na- 




THE KING AND QUEENS OF MARAQUELLI 



MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 303 

tive woman that I ever saw. Her millinery was not 
made in Paris, however! 

The third day was one of the most eventful of all. 
Before sunrise the men of the town brought large 
stones to the grave and walled it in, making an en- 
closure about six feet wide and ten feet long. Dozens 
of empty gin-bottles were placed all around the grave 
— a very common custom on this coast. The mound 
was then levelled down and the entire enclosure cov- 
ered with stones and wet sand. At the head they 
placed a couple of small ivory tusks, a rice bowl con- 
taining Wobeh's silver ring and some kola-nuts, two 
pitchers, and a small brass kettle. Across these was 
laid an unsheathed sword. The fixing of the grave 
was not completed until they had brought a small jug 
of rum and poured a little of it into each vessel. The 
thirst of Wobeh's spirit was apparently more easily 
quenched than had been that of the man in life — and 
this enabled the men about the grave to put the greater 
part of the rum to a more exhilarating use. 

Commissioner Kennedy came forward at this 
juncture and presented the village with a large Li- 
berian flag for the grave. It was accepted with ap- 
preciation and placed on a small stick until an appro- 
priate staff could be secured. When the Commissioner 
walked up to the grave the following morning, he saw 
the star and stripes of Liberia flying from a thirty-foot 
bamboo staff, with the empty rum- jug perched on top ! 

After the grave had been properly arranged, the 
town assembled to witness the significant ceremony 



304 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

of killing the white chicken. The principal nephew of 
the late King knelt on the grave and held the chicken's 
head above Wobeh's head. King Sow made a long 
speech and then different members of Wobeh's family 
gave the chicken some messages to take to his spirit. 
This part of the ceremony was very solemn and im- 
pressive. It was clear that they implicitly believed 
that the messages would reach their destination. 

Then the nephew pulled off the chicken's head and 
threw the body down on the grave. Curiously enough, 
the headless chicken fluttered around until it reached 
the head of the grave and seemed to be trying to bore 
its way down to the King. Even to an onlooker who 
did not share their superstitious beliefs, there was 
something uncanny in the convulsions of the headless 
fowl. It then fluttered away, the throng crowding 
each other in their efforts to watch its every move- 
ment. When it finally ceased its struggles there was 
a chorus of " Ah ! " followed by some excited talk- 
ing. It was explained to me that when a chicken dies 
with its feet in the air, it is a sign that the one who 
killed it has been true to the King and has not med- 
dled with his women. In this case the chicken had 
died on its side! 

Then another chicken was brought for another 
nephew to kill. It likewise died on its side, and there 
was another chorus of excited grunts. A third chicken 
was killed by a niece, with the same result; but the 
fourth, killed by another niece, stopped with its feet 
in the air. The crowd went wild, caught up the girl, 
and marched through the town with, her on their 



MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 305 

shoulders, like a crowd of college-boys with a foot- 
ball hero. Wobeh had one relative that had been 
true! 

This ceremony was followed an hour or two later 
by that of eating the chickens, together with rice 
cooked in palm-oil. The food was placed at the head 
of the grave and Wobeh's head-wife presided over the 
pot. All the children squatted about on the grave 
and the other relatives were assembled around it. 
King Sow had a good many remarks to make before 
he called up the eldest son and motioned for him to 
take the palmful of rice which the widow held out. 
Before eating it he was required to make certain 
promises relative to peace in the family. Each of the 
relatives was called out in turn and required to go 
through the same performance. Old King Sow kept 
his ears open, and whenever he was not satisfied with 
a given promise he arose and cross-questioned the rela- 
tive like a country lawyer until he made him promise 
what he wanted. Parts of this ceremony were excit- 
ing; at times there were outbursts of laughter at one 
of Sow's jokes; very little of it was sad or pathetic. 

But when the chief widow's turn came, I had a 
startling revelation of the untaught African's belief 
in some sort of an immortality. Turning her moth- 
erly face to the grave, she sat there and talked to 
Wobeh as naturally as if she were looking into his 
face. There was an undertone of pathos in her voice 
as she reminded her lord that she had always been true 
to him, and assured him that she would do her full 
duty to his family and his town. When she had 



306 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

ended, she sat for a moment in motionless silence. 
But nobody needed to cross-question her. 

There was nothing extraordinary for the next two 
days. On the fourth the mourning women were taken 
to the creek and washed, in order that they might be- 
gin to dress up for the final feast. On the fifth day 
the men of the town were assembled under the big 
palaver-tree at the creek and individually sworn to be 
loyal to the town. The oath was administered by 
making the man drink from a bowl of milkish fluid, 
which was supposed to kill him if he were insincere. 
On this day, also, the men brought in large quanti- 
ties of firewood and the women were busy threshing 
and cleaning rice. 

Then came the last and greatest day — the slaughter 
of the bullock and the great feast. So far as I could 
learn, there is no sacrificial idea involved in the cere- 
mony; the slaughter is solely for the purpose of pro- 
viding a joyful banquet. The big bullock was led to 
a vacant place near the grave, just at sunrise, and se- 
curely tied down on its side. Its throat was then cut, 
the windpipe being severed, and the animal slowly bled 
to death, the blood being carefully caught in a large 
wooden bowl. It was twenty minutes before it ceased 
to struggle, but its tail had been severed long before, 
this being the especial perquisite of the men selected 
as butchers. 

The carcass was then skinned and King Sow sat in 
his leopard chair while the bullock was cut up. He 
kept a careful watch to see that not even an ounce 



MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 307 

of meat was taken by anybody. A boy started to walk 
away with a tiny morsel, but the King's voice roared 
out in anger and the frightened lad brought it back 
in haste. Two large brass kettles and a large basket 
were placed in front of His Majesty, and in these were 
placed the internal organs and the choicest cuts — " the 
King's meat." Now and then one of the butchers 
would overlook some small portion, but the King over- 
looked nothing; he had every error promptly rectified. 
Altogether, he received about one-third of the bul- 
lock. The remainder was cut up and distributed 
among the families to be cooked — but not eaten ; posi- 
tively no part of the animal except the hide and horns 
was discarded. There was not quite enough to go 
around, so the King ordered a dog killed to make up 
the deficiency. As a compliment to the one white 
man in the town. Sow gave me a piece of liver and 
the breast-bone out of '' the King's meat," to be cooked 
in the white man's fashion. 

In the afternoon he sent for me to come to the 
grave, and there I found the whole village hungrily 
eyeing fifty-two large vessels filled with rice and cov- 
ered with meat, to be distributed by the King among 
the families. Two bowls were topped off with dried 
elephant meat that looked like chunks of asbestos, and 
one dish was covered with at least a dozen juicy rats. 
The old man made a long speech and then began the 
difficult task of distributing the bowls. The first came 
to me, and I examined it carefully to see that I had 
not drawn the rats. The next two or three went to 
visiting kings, but the distribution of the remaining 



308 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

vessels was accomplished only after much wrangling. 
The natives then disappeared into their huts to gorge 
themselves during the rest of the afternoon. 

At eventide the whole village, kings and all, came 
out with musical instruments and began the final 
dance. The shuffling procession was for the first time 
led by the royal visitors, all of them half-drunk. Old 
King Sow was so proud of himself that he marched 
the procession to my hut and gave me his leopard 
chair to sit upon while he executed some fancy steps. 
The kings soon grew weary, but the town resounded 
with revelry until past midnight. 

This was the end of the funeral. Wobeh's heart 
had been made to lie down. His spirit had started on 
its long journey. 



XXII 
THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 

BETWEEN the fusilades of the big-game shoot- 
ers, the roaring of wounded lions, and the 
trumpeting of charging elephants, hear now a 
song of broken interludes about a very human side 
of African life. 

The first white woman that I met in the Black 
Man's land was a waitress in a French cafe — a camp- 
follower of colonization. It was in Dakar, the capital 
of French West Africa. In the middle of a blazing 
January afternoon I had strolled into a cafe, giving 
thanks to whatever gods there be that the French col- 
onizer invariably takes along the cooling cafes of 
civilization as well as its railroads and gunpowder. 

That cafe was Tunis and Biskra and Casablanca 
over again- — only it wasn't. Monsieur was not so 
affable; the Senegal life was getting on his nerves, 
perhaps. There was the same red-trousered French 
soldier, sipping the same white and 3^ellow and green 
drinks — but there was the black, slouchy Senegalese 
instead of the monk-like Arab and Moor. But the 
drinks were the same — anisette and chartreuse and 
absinthe and creme de menthe — and there was the 
blessed coolness of a little lump of ice. 

And so I pointed to the milky anisette that a souave 

309 



310 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

was absorbing, for I had found pointing to be the 
quickest way of getting things in a French cafe. 
When it arrived, Mademoiselle arrived with it — same 
old Mademoiselle, only there were hard lines in her 
face and more roof -paint on her cheeks. Then, too, 
she was careless about her millinery, w^hich shows how 
very far the Senegal is from Paris, and there was 
something about the eyes that seemed to say what I 
afterward heard from many lips — " Life on this coast 
is hell ! " 

The worst of it was that Mademoiselle was drunk — 
too drunk to take a hint, even when badly expressed 
in French. It is her job to drink, of course, and to be 
sociable on short acquaintance. But either she was 
too sociable, or the acquaintance was too short, and 
so we parted. Mademoiselle and I — abruptly. 

They will tell you on the steamers that ply up and 
down the coast that there are fifty damsels like 
Mademoiselle in Dakar. Not having seen the other 
forty-nine, I merely pass along the gossip. I passed 
it once to the captain of a ship-of-war, as I partook 
of his gracious hospitality in a rolling sea, and he 
pricked up his ears. He was going to lie up for a few 
days at the Canaries, he had said, while the engineers 
scraped the barnacles off the propellers. When I 
caught the last sight of his smoking funnels, however, 
the steel nose of his cruiser pointed toward — not the 
Canaries ! 

But here's to you. Mademoiselle, in your cafe at 
Dakar. They don't think much of you in the com- 
fortable altitudes north of the Tropic of Cancer, 



THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 311 

where the West Coast is a meaningless phrase and 
where they cannot understand that you also have 
your little part to play in the endless game of empire. 
You were not polite to me on that sultry afternoon, 
Mademoiselle, but you were ivhite^ thank God. So 
here's hoping that you have long since gone up the 
gang-plank of the Homeward-bound! 

In vivid contrast stands out clear and strong the 
remembrance of the last white woman that I saw in 
Africa. It was in sleepy old Freetown, Sierra Leone, 
where for a hundred years the ships of England have 
come and gone — come with cloth and rum and bright- 
eyed young Britons, gone with palm-nuts and piassava 
and gaunt spectres on furlough, whose hearts beat 
stronger at the thought of seeing the coastwise lights 
again. 

She is Indiana-bred and she presides with gracious- 
ness over a most imposing residence in Freetown — 
and it flies the Flag. Her husband is a missionary 
(and our Vice-Consul also) and she is there with him 
because she also is a factor in the civilization of Af- 
rica and her heart is in her work. She has come to 
stay — this cultivated American woman with her piano 
and her hand-painted china, and the beautiful ma- 
hogany furniture that she carved with her own hands. 
Result: Her husband goes joyously and hopefully at 
his task and sits at night on the porch of a real home, 
while his English brother in the government service 
smokes his pipe in a lonely bungalow — or gets drunk 
and goes to bed to forget it all! 



312 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

Among the American women in Africa — ^and there 
are many of them between Tangier and Capetown — I 
found no rarer and choicer specimens than two 
Lutheran schoolma'ams, thirty miles up the St. Paul 
River from Monrovia, on the border-line between 
civilization and the bush. Technically speaking, they 
are missionaries, but they overlook technicalities. 
Whole-hearted, cheery, good-looking American girls, 
they laughed out loud when they felt like it, they asked 
no embarrassing questions about my spiritual status — 
and I could sit on their piazza and smoke any kind of 
vegetable matter that my pipe would hold. 

Their heart, also, is in their work. And their work 
is a ramshackle boarding-school for young girls from 
the bush — a young ladies' seminary and conservatory 
of music, so to speak. Theirs is a more difficult task 
than you realize until you try it. Besides, you can 
hear all sorts of weird noises at night; there are plenty 
of snakes crawling about; bush-men sometimes come 
a-prowling — and there is not even a dog to chase them 
away. All the men missionaries are at the boys' 
school across the river, and several things could hap- 
pen in the half-hour that it takes to cross. One of 
the younger men, with an inventive brain, once loaded 
up an old shotgun and carried it over to the girls' 
school for use as an emergency alarm. The emer- 
gency came one night, but neither girl had nerve 
enough to pull the trigger! 

They upset all missionary traditions, these girls at 
Muhlenburg. After two years' service they were not 
only hale and hearty, but had gained flesh! Their 



THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 313 

furlough was due in August, and when I saw them in 
March they were '' fussing " because the board had 
instructed them to return home four months earlier. 
I have seen many missionaries, but I know no others 
like these. 

But not all the American girls who go into the West 
African bush take on flesh. Once, three hundred 
miles to the southward, I photographed a group of 
newly arrived Methodists, on the day they went in- 
land to their lonely station. Within the year, one was 
in his grave, and three of the women were in- 
valided home. 

Some of the women, however, are able to work on 
for years, and one that I saw, eighty miles from any- 
where, had married a bright young bush-boy whom 
she had redeemed from paganism; she severed her 
homeland ties, and settled down in the bush for life. 
On my way down the river that flows by the mud 
village where she makes her home, I passed a log 
canoe into which the bush-husband was loading three 
little half-castes, starting for the school at the coast. 
She is no longer a missionary, of course; that is, she 
is not on the pay-roll of any society. 

Now and then, but not often, you will meet the 
American-born coloured girl out on this unhealthy 
coast; and, whatever her work may be, it is generally 
of the same high grade as that of her white country- 
woman. 

In the American Legation at Monrovia, for exam- 



314 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

pie, I found a Baltimore girl, Miss Annabel Lyon (now 
Mrs. Walker). She was the Clerk of the Legation, 
and that is a hot and busy job. The diplomatic de- 
spatches that she ground out of her typewriter were 
just about as neat and accurate as any that go into 
the files at Washington. She is also a young woman 
of culture and irreproachable character. There is no 
colour-line in Monrovia, unless you choose to draw 
one for yourself, and the young Germans in the 
trading-houses whiled away many evenings at the 
American Legation. 

At lonely Garroway, near the farther extremity of 
the Liberian coast, is another young Negro woman — 
Miss Anna Hall, of Atlanta. I had heard so much 
about her work that I did not protest (though I was 
sick at the time) when a jovial Methodist Bishop 
hauled me out of bed at 3 a.m. to make a pilgrimage 
to her station. In an open boat, rowed by Kroo-boys, 
we went twenty miles by sea, along a dangerous coast, 
and had to come back by night, in the dark of the 
moon — but it was worth it. 

Miss Hall is an unpretentious, matter-of-fact 
woman who does the work of three husky men. She 
conducts a boarding-school for about a hundred boys 
and girls from the villages scattered throughout the 
bush. That of itself is a fair-sized job. Then she 
oversees the little farm that produces most of what 
her school-children eat. She teaches the principal 
classes herself and also finds time to manage an in- 
dustrial department as a side-line. 

Having been trained in Spelman Seminary (At- 



THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 315 

lanta) as a nurse, she has estabhshed a small hos- 
pital and a big clinic for the natives. From the 
balcony of the mission-house, on the top of a high 
hill, you can see the lonely grave of the only white 
man on that part of the coast — a young English trader 
who went swiftly by the fever route. It was Miss 
Hall's skilful hands and not those of a rough Kroo- 
boy that smoothed his way to the end; she gave him 
a Christian bed with white sheets to die on; he had 
benefit of clergy as well as cooling cloths on his head; 
and, when it was over, he went to his grave like an 
Englishman. 

There are so many ministrations to this Negro 
woman's credit that I lost count. Somebody is get- 
ting big dividends from the money invested in that 
young woman's work. To prove that I am not biased 
in her favour, I may add that she wouldn't let me 
smoke on her porch ! 

If you make a cross-section of Liberian society, no 
microscope is needed to show that it is not one con- 
glomerate mass; the different strata are sharply 
marked, and there is far less commingling than any- 
body would imagine. 

The upper stratum is composed of Negro women 
born in the United States or the West Indies — such 
as Miss Lyon and Miss Hall. Socially and intellec- 
tually, they lead all the women of their race. By 
her free-and-easy, self-reliant bearing you may rec- 
ognize the American-born wherever you see her. The 
West Indians are more numerous and are equally well 



316 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

educated, but they lack the snap of the Americans. 

In the next stratum are the Americo-Liberians — the 
granddaughters of the pioneer colonists and the 
daughters of the Negroes who went to Liberia after 
the dark days had dropped behind the western hori- 
zon. There is something pathetic about them, know- 
ing no civilization higher than their own, yet strug- 
gling to keep their homes and their social life up to 
a standard that is only a tradition. They have been 
criticised for holding themselves aloof from the peo- 
ple of the bush, but therein lies their salvation. They 
compare favourably with any Negro women in the 
world. 

On my first Sunday in Monrovia I responded with 
alacrity when the call of the church-bells broke the 
morning stillness; I was eager to compare these sec- 
ond and third-generation American Negroes with 
those of a Kentucky congregation. 

First, I went to the Episcopal Church. It was well- 
filled. Nearly all the women and girls were dressed 
in white; not one wore the brilliant colours that char- 
acterize the costumes of a coloured congregation in 
Louisville on a summer's morn. 

The service had not begun, but there was no loud 
talking nor giggling; the Episcopal atmosphere per- 
vaded the house. At the proper moment they opened 
their prayer-books and made the responses promptly 
and reverently. The singing was well-modulated, but 
lacked the spontaneity (and also the nasal character- 
istics) of an American congregation. From begin- 
ning to end, in pulpit or choir or pew, there was noth- 



THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 317 

ing that seemed ludicrous even to a critical stranger's 
eyes. 

Then I went to the Methodist Church. Things 
seemed more familiar here. The pastor, as well as 
the pipe-organ, was American, and there was a fringe 
of brother-clergymen on the rostrum. The congrega- 
tion here was not clothed solidly in white raiment, 
but there was only one " loud " costume — that of a 
young man arrayed in a tennis-coat of broad and bril- 
liant stripes. I discovered later that he was a convert 
from Kroo Town who had come to '' join the church." 
The Methodist singing was congregational — hearty 
but fashionable — and there was one aged saint who 
punctuated the prayers with loud " Amens ! " 

It was not until the afternoon that I was made 
aware of the perpetuation of old-time religion in Mon- 
rovia. From the African Methodist — ^the old church 
which Lott Carey helped to build with his own indus- 
trious hands — came the high-pitched, sonorous hymns 
of the " piney-woods " churches in the upland South. 
From the distance of a block I could hear the min- 
ister *' lining out " the old long-metre hymns — ^two 
lines at a time — and as his voice died away the con- 
gregation sang the couplet so that all the sinners in 
Monrovia might hear. It was unctuous and inspiring 
and home-like. 

At public functions, the Americo-Liberian women 
were a disappointment. There was no lack of culti- 
vation and refined manners, but they were noticeably 
backward and ill-at-ease. With the exception of those 
whose duty it was to receive the guests, the women 



318 THE LAND OP THE WHITE HELMET 

sat back against the wall; conversation was laborious 
on both sides. 

The men are to blame for this. They have kept 
their wives too much in the background. Until re- 
cently it was not " the thing " for an Americo- 
Liberian gentleman to appear with his wife at a func- 
tion. A white American who made an informal visit 
to an ex-President of Liberia told me that he found 
him at dinner, alone; his wife and the other members 
of his family were eating in the kitchen. The younger 
Liberians are " bringing out " their wives, however. 
I recall with pleasure the gracious bearing of Mrs. 
Dossen, wife of the Vice-President, who may eventu- 
ally become '' the first lady " of Liberia. She would 
make an excellent national hostess. 

The women of Cape Palmas — the Maryland colony 
— are nearer to the American type, possibly because 
there are few West Indians in that part of Liberia. 
Take the one that I know best, the wife of Rev. S. 
D. Ferguson, Jr., in whose home I spent two pleas- 
ant weeks. Mrs. Ferguson is an educated, refined 
woman, a leader in the social and religious life of the 
Cape. Yet her chief pride is her home. She has four 
household servants, but she herself does the cooking — 
and the best luck that I can wish for myself in Africa 
is that whenever I am sick I may be near the Fergu- 
son's. She can serve more appetizing dishes that no 
sick man should eat than any woman I know of on 
that coast. By all the laws that limit tropical eating, 
I should now be tucked away under a palm-tree — but 
I have discovered that some men can stand quite an 





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Hifnf 


^V- . a^ ^^^^^^^^^H 


^^^^Hi' " 1 







A KROO " BOY " AND HIS WIFE, MONROVIA 



THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 319 

amount of good food on emerging half- famished from 
a bush-trip. 

The third stratum — the semi-civilized — includes a 
picturesque variety of African beauties. First, there 
are the Kroos, the wives and daughters of the " sea- 
boys " who travel up and down West Africa as deck- 
hands on the cargo-boats. There are thousands of 
these good-natured, happy-go-lucky coast people; in 
disposition they are very much like the women and 
girls of the Negro quarter in the average Southern 
city. As a rule, however, the Kroo woman is care- 
lessly clad in " cloth " instead of skirts, and her lan- 
guage is a jargon-English that completely bewilders 
the newcomer. 

You may see in Monrovia, also, the women from 
other half-civilized native tribes, especially the Vai 
girls, who are the comeliest of that coast. There is 
a small village of them on an island in front of the 
capital, and its reputation is not the best. 

In this half-and-half class belong also the Congo 
girls — the descendants of Negroes from what is now 
the Belgian Congo who were liberated from slave- 
ships and colonized in Liberia. The present gen- 
eration is yet sharply defined; their dialect, their weird 
songs and wild dances, and their voodooism have sur- 
vived, though greatly modified by contact with the 
Americo-Liberians. 

Now and then, also, even in a bush-village, you 
will find a half -civilized woman — perhaps the only one 
in the town who wears real clothes. The explanation 



S20 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

of the phenomenon is simple; she was brought up in 
some American mission school. As a rule, her man- 
ners as well as her clothes are evidences of the patient 
training that somebody gave her years before. 

The first woman of the bush that I really came to 
know was a Golah girl named Nang-quee. District- 
Commissioner Kennedy was piloting me on my first 
trip into the hinterland and I had spent my first night 
in a king's house — ^that is, a mud hut. When our 
little caravan was strung out on the trail next morn- 
ing, I noticed a woman and a girl in the lead. Ken- 
nedy explained that they belonged to a village four 
days inland, and that the President had asked him 
to pick them up and take them back. 

Nang-quee was an unusually good type of the sweet- 
girl graduate from the bush school. Do the raw Afri- 
cans have schools ? Plenty of them. The bush school 
is an institution that may be defined as a cross be- 
tween a girls' boarding-school and the Order of the 
Eastern Star. I have seen but one, for the school 
village is hidden away in the jungle and the trail that 
leads to it is always marked by a sign that no bush- 
man can mistake. The penalty for trespass is said 
to be death. 

The principal of this young ladies' seminary was 
an old hag who was supposed to be the wisest in the 
tribe and she had perhaps two hundred girls of all 
ages under her tuition. She teaches them orally every- 
thing that a bush- woman should know, and plenty of 
things, perhaps, that they might better find out for 



THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 321 

themselves. The institution is enveloped with mys- 
tery and superstition; there is an initiation ceremony 
of a weird kind, and nothing in life is more binding 
than the oath of secrecy. Graduation week is lit- 
erally " a howling time "; it is also the wedding week 
for most of the larger girls. 

Nang-quee was dressed to suit the climate. She 
wore a belt of beads, a strip of cloth about three inches 
wide, and had a bandana handkerchief about her head. 
She was a vivacious, good-natured girl and differed 
from the average in being brown instead of pot-black. 
Her presence embarrassed me at first, for I was 
anxious to impress the natives favourably; but Ken- 
nedy (who knows the bush) assured me that the belt 
of beads would indicate virginity in every village we 
should pass through. 

Since the girl was somebody's property and we were 
temporarily a trust company, I was solicitous that no 
harm should befall her. When we stopped to spend 
the night in a strange town, I noticed that Nang- 
quee disappeared; nothing more was seen of her until 
the next morning. 

I spoke to Kennedy about it, telling him that a 
young and attractive girl should not be turned loose 
at night in a strange village, to sleep in whatever hut 
she could find lodgment. This amused the Commis- 
sioner and he told me something about uncivilized life 
that I never learned at a missionary lecture. It was this : 

The virtue of an unmarried girl is safe anywhere 
in the bush, at any hour of the day or night. The 
poison-cup or the bonfire, or whatever other punish- 



32^ THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

ment a palaver-council may decree, awaits the man 
who violates this fundamental law of the bush. 

I didn't worry about her any more. When we de- 
livered her over to the head-man of her village, there 
was nothing to be explained. 

The matrons of the bush village wear, as a rule, 
only a " cloth "^ — a couple of yards of cheap calico 
fastened at the waist and reaching to the knees. From 
the native point of view, there is nothing immodest 
about it. 

There are those who smile when the word " mod- 
est " is mentioned in connection with a half-naked 
African, yet there is a native modesty that is not to 
be laughed at. Its requirements are scrupulously ob- 
served, even by the men. My civilized sensibilities 
were never shocked by carriers, though I travelled 
with the same men for weeks. There may be African 
tribes where the men and women are like beasts, but 
I have not seen them. 

Being property, these African girls are marketed 
early; the price varies in different localities. I was 
informed that I could have Nang-quee for about $20 
worth of merchandise, but in another part of the bush 
the standard price seemed to be cattle and goats to 
the value of about $50. The price also fluctuates ac- 
cording to the wealth of the prospective husband, and 
his eagerness. The personal appearance of the girl 
cuts no figure, but any physical deformity that inter- 
feres with her ability to work causes her to be placed 
on the odds-and-ends counter. 



THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 

For it is the woman who must bear the Black Man's 
burden. The wife and daughters are nothing more 
nor less than domestic slaves to the lord of the hut. 
When the January rains are over, the men of the vil- 
lage go out to the village " farm," cut away the jungle 
with their butcher-knives, and leave the brush to dry 
in the hot sun. Then it is set on fire and man's work 
is o'er. The planting, the care of the growing crop, 
the gathering, and the milling is woman's work. The 
man lounges around while his woman slings the baby 
on her back, puts a big jar on her head, and goes to 
the creek for water. 

Aside from the unequal division of labour, how- 
ever, the woman of the bush is not badly treated in 
these little tribal republics. I saw but one town where 
there was gross cruelty toward the weaker sex, and 
even there it was evident that the women had a good 
deal of influence in the village palavers. 

Bush housekeeping is a very simple matter. Afri- 
cans are early-risers. At daybreak most of the men 
scatter into the bush to examine their snares or climb 
some distant palm for the sour " wine " that has seeped 
out during the night. Meanwhile, the woman puts 
fresh wood on the smouldering embers in the middle 
of the clay floor and goes off to the creek to bathe 
and bring the jar of water. There are no beds to 
make up, no floors to sweep, nothing to be dusted. 

The cooking is all done in one pot. Rice that has 
been hulled with a wooden mortar and pestle is the 
staple food in some regions; in others it is cassava — 



SU THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

which is a sweet-potato without the sweetness. Into 
the pot is placed also a piece of smoked meat or fish, 
usually tainted. If there is no meat, " palm-butter " 
(a soup made from the oily husk of the palm-nut) 
is poured over the rice when cooked. The family 
eats out of the pot and there are no dishes to wash. 
There is no " wash Monday " to be dreaded, no but- 
tons to sew on, no socks to darn. 

The bush mother is a good mother, in her way, but 
it is rather a Spartan way. The little black babies do 
not cry like civilized babies; they know better. The 
saddest fact is that so many of them die in that hot 
climate, for there is no protection against epidemics 
and there are no physicians. 

These African mothers have a strong, animal af- 
fection for their babies, and are rarely separated from 
them during the first three years. The native chil- 
dren are generally supposed to have more affection 
for the mother than for the father, but it seemed to 
me that no sharp distinction could be drawn. For 
instance, in villages where the sight of a white face 
sent all the pickaninnies flying in terror, they would 
run to their fathers for protection as quickly as to 
their mothers. And in the few instances when a bush 
baby was fearless and allowed the white man to take 
it in his arms, the father's pride equalled that of the 
mother. 

The sudden apparition of a white man in a village 
which has never seen one before inspires a terror which 




THE PIPE IN ADVANCE OF CIVILIZATION 



THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 325 

only strong-nerved men can withstand. The few na- 
tives who have visited the coast get a good deal of 
fun out of the first experience of their untravelled 
neighbours. When a woman with a load on her head 
and a baby on her back meets a white apparition in 
the trail, and both give a howl and go flying into 
the bush, the native who is not afraid howls with de- 
light. With the exception of the little girls and babies, 
however, the fear is soon overcome. 

I recall one of the King's women in the little town 
of Dee-ah-bo, on top of a hill that required half an 
hour of laborious climbing. We had halted in the 
royal hut for lunch, but it required time and patience 
to get his household back after they caught sight of 
the white man. This woman was a fat, good-natured 
soul, black as the Gold Dust Twins and shiny with 
palm-oil. Her entire wardrobe would have made 
about three handkerchiefs. For a long time she could 
not be induced to come farther than the door, and 
whenever I looked at her she ran. She was eventually 
coaxed inside and was at last persuaded by the King 
to put her hand on the back of my head. 

Then she became excited and stroked it as if it were 
a kitten, making exclamations which were interpreted 
as wonder at its softness. Fear now gave way to ad- 
miration, and we furnished no end of merriment to 
the King and to my carriers. 

But the best of friends must part, so I passed out 
of sight with the old lady standing on the hill-top, 
silhouetted against the grey sky. 



XXIII 
AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 

" "T SHALL not go trotting around Africa with 

I a guide tagging at my heels, advertising me as 
a fool tourist," I said resolutely before I went 
ashore. Few things in life are certain, but that was 
one of the few. 

This was made very clear to an expectant group of 
Arabs in the lobby of the Grand Hotel, as I came out 
from breakfast and prepared for my first inspection 
of Tunis. I was not a tourist, I explained; I did not 
need a guide. It was gratifying to observe that they 
received the shock with the calm stoicism of true Mus- 
sulmans, and I sauntered carelessly down the Avenue 
de la France. 

" This is the way to do the thing," I mused. 
" Dress like the foreign residents, side-step the guides, 
and make the natives think that you have lived here 
half your life." Nothing was easier. 

Just then a fine-looking, well-dressed Arab stepped 
in front of me, begged my pardon in French, and 
handed me a card. This is what I read : 



Hassin Forga 

Courrier^ Interpreteur et Guide 

Autorise par le Goiivernement 

Grand Hotel Tunis 

326 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 327 

" He must have seen me when I arrived," I thought. 
Then, gently but with much firmness, I explained to 
Hassin that I was not a tourist, and that I did not 
need a guide. Very well, but if I should wish for a 
guide later, I could inquire for him at the Grand 
Hotel. The concierge knew where to find him. 

A treacherous memory fails me when I try to re- 
call how often this experience was repeated during that 
morning walk. My explanation became less and less 
gracious, but not less firm, until the Bright Idea 
dawned. Noticing that most of them addressed me 
either in broken English or guide-book French, I af- 
fected absolute ignorance of both languages. '' Ich 
kann es nicht verstehen! " was my stock response. But 
even this ruse failed to work. They must have passed 
the word dow^n the line, for on my return they offered 
their services in German. I withstood the daily siege 
for a whole week and then gave up. 

In every Arab city the experience began — and 
ended — in the same way. It is folly to try to dodge 
them; they watch all the hotels and, one after an- 
other, in an endless chain, waylay the traveller. The 
only way of escape lies in hiring one of them; then 
the others quit the trail. Your new-found Mohammed 
will thenceforth stick to you closer than a brother and 
will be a continual source of annoyance unless you 
make him a source of amusement. If you assume at 
the outset that all of his general information is mis- 
information, and use him mainly as a street-directory 
and an interpreter, you are safe. But if you use him 



THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

as a purchasing agent or a manual of history, you are 
a chump. 

There was Mohammed of the Grand Hotel in 
Kairouan the Holy, for example. (Every French 
city has a Grand Hotel, and every hotel has several 
Mohammeds.) After I had explained to him that I 
had no intention of buying or building a mosque, and 
that two were, therefore, quite enough for me to see — 
also that I had not the remotest idea of purchas- 
ing a Kairouan rug (upon which he would receive a 
commission from the seller as well as the buyer) — ^he 
became quite useful. 

There was also Abidi ben-Afayer of Biskra, who 
was an Arab gentleman of superior intelligence. He 
was not one of the hangers-on at the Hotel du Sahara; 
he waited until I was contentedly sipping an ice at the 
Cafe Glacier. Abidi was a born diplomat. If any- 
body is looking for an Arab to sell lightning-rods or 
life insurance in southern Algeria, I heartily recom- 
mend him. He could sell an Equitable policy to an 
agent of the New York Life. 

In some ingenious way, Abidi succeeded in having 
himself invited to sit down at the table, while I or- 
dered his coffee. He never mentioned the word guide, 
but I am a born suspicioner and lost no time in care- 
fully explaining that I was not a tourist, and that I 
did not need a guide. 

Abidi understood, oh, quite perfectly ! By the way, 
I had been to the Cafe Maure and seen the dance of 
the Ouleds-Nails, of course. No? Well, he was go- 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 329 

ing down that way; we might walk together. Now, 
it happened that the cafe where the white-cowled 
Arabs squat around by the scores and swap yarns over 
their black coffee was my next station, but I bade 
Abidi an revoir and sauntered back to the hotel to 
'' shake " him. Half an hour later I was sitting alone 
at a rude table in the Cafe Maure, delightedly sizing 
up the wild-looking men of the Desert who were 
squatting in front of a graphophone that had been fed 
with Arab records. 

A touch on the arm — and there was my faithful 
friend, Abidi ben-Afayer. We had another coffee. 

Perhaps I would like to see the dancing-girls ? Not 
now? Oh, very well; since I was going back to the 
hotel, he would walk with me as far as the Cafe 
Glacier. But let me cover my face in shame while I 
confess that I innocently allowed him to lead me down 
a " short-cut," and that the short-cut led into the Rue 
des Oideds-Ndils, after all — but he got no tip for his 
pains. By the time I had reached the hotel, however, 
he had drunk four coffees at my expense. 

Thenceforward he was my shadow. In the early 
morning, as I stepped out upon the broad verandah, I 
was sure to see Abidi somewhere on the horizon. If 
I lost myself in the crowded market-place, not caring 
if I ever found my way out, I was sure to bump into 
the surprised (?) Abidi. His ingenuity was as re- 
markable as his persistency, but he did not make me 
his captive until the rest of the guides began to make 
life a burden. It was comforting, at least, to know 
that I could not long be lost in Biskra. 



330 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

I had never been in Constantine before, yet the 
smooth, boyish face of Saadi Amar lighted up with 
pleasure when he overtook me in the square. Memory 
tells me that I made a curt response to his affable 
*' Good evening, Sir!" but the fact is that Saadi 
jarred on my nerves. It was moonlight and I was 
thinking great thoughts — thoughts of the great Con- 
stantine who built this Algerian city, and of Sallust 
and the Jugurthine War which the old Romans fought 
on this spot — ^and Saadi's voice brought me back over 
the centuries with the suddenness of a sharp tug on 
the bit. 

But if the ungraciousness of my response does not 
disturb you any more than it did Saadi, we won't 
worry about it. In the most care-ful-ly ar-tic-u-la-ted 
Eng-lish that I ever heard from an Arab's lips, he 
explained how welcome I was to his city. Then he 
let it out that he was a guide — not an ordinary hotel- 
guide, but a professional companion, interpreter, and 
friend. 

There was something in the drawl of Saadi's voice 
and in the English swagger of his walk that made me 
itch to kick him. My self-restraint was rewarded by 
an outburst of confidence. Saadi began to tell me his 
life-story. 

'* I have been guide to many wealthy English gen- 
tlemen," he said. 

No response. 

'' I like the English gentlemen very much," he 
continued. 

Deep silence. 




LA RUE DES OULED-XAILS, BISKRA 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 331 

" I like the English gentlemen better than any 
other gentlemen who visit Constantine." 

" Really ? " I asked, encouragingly. 

" Oh, certainly." 

" I don't." 

Saadi almost dropped his cane, which he was swing- 
ing along in the London style which you see on the 
stage. He had picked it up along with his English 
boots. 

'' Are you not English gentleman? " he asked. 

" Not quite," I modestly answered. 

'' Then you are American? " 

" Said to be." 

"Ah!" — and then he lifted up his voice and sang 
the praises of the wealthy American gentlemen whom 
he had led through the devious ways of Constantine. 
All the American gentlemen had gone to see the 
dancing-girls: would I not like to go now and see 
le danse Arahe? Not to-night? Then would I not 
like to have him give m^ an Arab bath? All the 
American gentlemen 

But the American gentleman said that he was going 
to his hotel. He also explained that he was not a 
tourist and did not need a guide, etc. Nevertheless, 
my powers of resistance, which had been weakened by 
weeks of repeated onslaught, soon gave way before 
his naive persistence. I promised that I would engage 
his services the following morning. 

This promise put Saadi on a confidential footing 
and he began to enumerate the pleasing things that I 
might see and do before next morning. He spread 



332 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

his wares before me as a countryman spreads his 
produce in the market-place — and it was the most 
picturesque and vicious assortment of vice that I had 
ever heard of. It was clear that this polished young 
Arab with the idealized face of a saint did not pos- 
sess even the rudiments of a moral conscience. His 
proposals would make a Bowery policeman blush. 
Yet, shortly before twelve the next day, Saadi ex- 
cused himself that he might hasten to the mosque in 
time for le grand priere. 

As I was leaving Constantine, Saadi was again on 
the scene. He showed me the cards of some of the 
" English gentlemen " whom he had guided, includ- 
ing a Rothschild, and requested mine. I gave it to 
him, and then he asked me to write a recommendation 
on it. 

" You want something for the American gentlemen 
who may come ? " I asked. 

Yes, that was the idea. 

Whereupon, I cheerfully complied, in this wise: 



'* As a smooth Oriental proposition, 
Saadi is a wonder. I have not seen his 
equal in that respect in North Africa." 



Saadi read it in silence. The closing sentence met 
his approval, but the other puzzled him. He asked 
me about it, so I translated it into both English and 
French. 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 333 

" Smooth proposition," I explained, means " pol- 
ished gentleman"; "a wonder" is something mar- 
vellous. 

The bewilderment cleared aw^ay and his face fairly 
beamed with pleasure. Saadi and I were even! 

^ jf: ^ ^ ^ 

In mentally stepping across the almost imperceptible 
boundary that separates the Arabs from the Moors, 
the first figure that appears on the horizon is Bigotee. 
Once he had a Moorish name, no doubt; but ever since 
his short, scraggy beard grew out and ran down his 
chin into a small goatee, he has been known in Tangier 
by the Spanish w^ord for beard, bigote. 

Ethnologically speaking, Bigotee is a country Moor 
come to town; intellectually, he is a child; financially, 
he is habitually in debt; morally, he is a perfect speci- 
men of total and spontaneous depravity. If there be 
one of the Ten Commandments which he does not 
break every day of his life, it is for lack of opportu- 
nity. Nevertheless, to a little group of Americans in 
Tangier, Bigotee was a loyal and indispensable serv- 
ant. He could always be depended upon to appear 
with a couple of donkeys within an hour of the ap- 
pointed time; we could swear at him in three lan- 
guages without rufifling his serene disposition; and we 
could lend him money with the certainty of getting 
part of it back, if we were willing to wait long enough 
and take it in trade. 

To be buncoed by Bigotee was well worth the price. 
Suppose, for example, a Moor comes along and wants 
to sell you a dagger for $3. You offer him $1, and 



S34 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

he turns away in disdain. Bigotee, who hears every- 
thing, indulges in some violent conversational exer- 
cises with the Moor and you know (if you know 
Bigotee) that he is arranging the sale on the basis 
of a commission to be collected later. Then Bigotee 
announces that you can have the dagger for $2. You 
are firm in your ultimatum — $1. More gesticulating 
— and to see Bigotee in action is well worth the price 
of admission. Then you are told that you may have 
the dagger for $1.50, and that it is a bargain. You 
put your dollar back in your pocket and walk away. 
The Moor and Bigotee go off together. By and by 
Bigotee returns and tells you that he knows another 
Moor who has a dagger just like it, and he thinks that 
he can get it for a dollar. You give him the money 
and in a few minutes he returns with the identical 
weapon that you have been examining. If you accuse 
him of lying, he is ready with the entire family his- 
tory of the friend he bought it from. Bigotee never 
allows himself to be convicted on circumstantial 
evidence. 

Once I gave him half a dollar with which to nego- 
tiate for some pictures that I had been unable to buy. 
The next day I met him unexpectedly in the street and 
demanded the pictures. He explained that the man 
wanted a dollar, but that he knew where he could get 
some others for fifty cents — and that he was then on 
his way to get them! Three days later his bland, in- 
nocent face appeared at the hotel window. The pic- 
tures ? No, the man didn't have any left, but he knew 
another man — — 




BIGOTEE, OF TANGIER 



THE RAISULI MOOR 




ABIDI, OF BISKRA 



SAADI, OF CONSTANTINE 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 335 

" Then give me back my half-dollar! " 
Bigotee dropped his eyes for a moment and then, 
with an expression that would move a wooden Indian 
to pity, confessed that he had spent it, but would pay 
it back soon. 

He owes it to me yet — nevertheless it was Bigotee 
who loaded my baggage on a donkey and steered it 
safely through the narrow street down to the dock 
when I was leaving Tangier. What was half a dollar 
between friends? 

The simple credulity of the average tourist — and 
Americans are as bad as any of them — is a never- 
ending source of wonderment and disgust to the aver- 
age European resident. The traveller usually arrives 
in Tangier on the ferryboat from Gibraltar about two 
o'clock in the afternoon and is landed in the arms of 
a battalion of young Moors, every one of whom wants 
to take him and her to a hotel. On the way, the 
young Mohammed lets it leak out that he is the official 
guide of the hotel and leaves the tourist under the 
impression that all others are sharks and octopuses? 
By the time the traveller's luggage has reached the 
hotel, a full programme of sightseeing has been made 
out, and about half of the '' sights " are pure, eighteen- 
karat fakes. 

For instance, you and your lady are deposited in 
red Moorish boxes called saddles, on top of a listless 
donkey or mule. It would be far better if you walked, 
but then the guide would get no commission from the 
owner of the beasts. You are prodded along the nar- 



336 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

row streets, past a number of places really worth see- 
ing, and escorted up to the Kasbah hill. After you 
have peeped through the round hole in the prison- 
door — behind which the guide ought to be — and 
otherwise afforded amusement to the Moors loitering 
about the Kasbah, the guide offers to show the ladies 
of the party through " the Sultan's harem." This 
chance of a lifetime is eagerly accepted, and the la- 
dies disappear through a doorway which the gentle- 
men would give up a gold coin to pass. (They can 
pass it later in the evening, if their inclination runs 
in that direction.) This "Sultan's harem" is noth- 
ing more wonderful than a bunch of Moorish women 
(not of " questionable " character) whose chief oc- 
cupation is that of helping to fake the fool touristess. 
They never saw a Sultan in their lives and would not 
know his harem from a troupe of dancing-girls. 
There is one Sultan's harem now in Tangier — that of 
Abdul Aziz — but no guide has the entree to it. 

When the ladies have come out of the harem and 
the proper entries have been made in the diaries, the 
procession heads for the Soco Grande, the great 
market-place; it is really the most interesting on the 
North African coast. But it is not the Soco that 
the guide brings you to see; he knows that there are 
two hungry-eyed Moors watching every rider that 
comes through the Soco gate. One, an old Sudanese 
in ragged clothes and a turban ornamented with 
cowrie-shells, has a small banjo and a face that lends 
itself to contortionate grimaces. He thumps away 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 337 

on his banjo, sings one or two bars of a wild song, 
keeping time with his abdomen, and then calls for 
contributions. If he suspects that the traveller is an 
American, he begins by calling out '' New York — 
Washington — Chicago — Buffalo ! " Hke a railroad 
brakeman. Then he gives a real Negro laugh, stretch- 
ing his mouth back to his ears, and this is perhaps 
worth what it costs. Under my tuition, this tourist- 
entertainer added " Hoboken " and " Sing Sing " to 
his list of American cities, but a few days later he 
shook his head when I prompted him. Somebody else 
had evidently been tinkering with his education when 
I was not looking. 

The other Soco pirate is the snake-charmer. He 
usually brings his three harmless reptiles in a bag of 
straw to a vacant spot near the Hotel Cavilla and pa- 
tiently awaits the traveller who has come so far to 
see him. He gives a brief but tame performance, per- 
suades a snake to grasp his tongue or his nose, then 
puts them away, and makes smoke and fire come out 
of his mouth and ignite the straw. 

The touristess puts all this down in her diary as 
scenes from Moroccan life; as a matter of fact, these 
two members of the profession rarely perform before 
a Moorish audience. But it makes good stuff to tell 
the folks at home. 

But the baldest and most conscienceless fake, next 
to the harem, is '* the Desert." The guide explains 
that the traveller may see here at Tangier the edge 
of the Sahara — and not one in ten knows Moroccan 



THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

geography well enough to expose the fraud. In truth, 
the tourist would have to ride a month before even 
seeing the edge of the Sahara, but his ignorance is the 
guide's help to a livelihood. 

And so, you and your little caravan are off for the 
Sahara. You approach it via the beach, since the fake 
would be apparent if you did not. You see the dunes 
of sand stretching inland to infinity — or you think you 
do. If you were to start across on foot or burro, half- 
an-hour's detour would bring you again to hard soil. 
But when seen only from the shore, these dunes make 
a great hit with the tourist. 

As a freak of nature, as well as a fake of the guide, 
this " desert " is really remarkable. There is another 
one like it at Mogador, on the southwest coast of 
Morocco, but it does not extend back from the shore 
far enough to make a first-class fake. In some re- 
spects, the Tangier dunes are a good imitation of the 
real Sahara — that is, of the sandy part of the Great 
Desert. A far more interesting experience, if the 
tourist only knew it, is to walk across this diversified 
tract of sand just before dusk, coming out at the beach, 
and then try to find his way back. I lost myself twice 
in doing this. If the wind happens to be blowing, 
the finest particles of the sand rise like mist or steam 
and soon obliterate all traces of the trail that leads 
across it. Unless there is sufficient light to enable the 
wanderer to recognize the landmarks of Tangier, 
which is in plain view by daylight, he will be tired 
when he eventually reaches the far side. Incidentally, 
he may have an unpleasant experience with a pack of 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 339 

wolf-like dogs if he wanders too near the huts of so- 
called Bedouins. 

" For ways that are dark and tricks that are [not] 
vain " the Moor can beat the Celestial any day in the 
week. After I had been two months in Morocco and 
thought that I knew all the fakes at sight, I met my 
Waterloo. I had been several miles back of Tangier 
and had blundered into a trail that led me into a Moor- 
ish village instead of around it. The trail ended in a 
" pocket," but a simple-minded country Moor led me 
back into the main road. I discovered that I had no 
loose coins, so I told him that I should be out there 
the next day to photograph some ruined tombs. 

As I expected, my mild-eyed, taciturn countryman 
strolled casually into view at the tombs the next morn- 
ing. He also, but casually, explained that he was a 
sort of deputy-sheriff of that district. He spoke a 
little Spanish and showed a disposition to be obliging. 
After we had walked about for an hour, we reached 
a high point commanding a beautiful view of the val- 
ley, in the centre of which was the polo-ground, then 
occupied by a circle of cavalry tents. 

These, he said^ were some of Raisuli's men. Under 
ordinary circumstances, I should not have believed a 
word of it; but I knew that Raisuli had horsemen, and 
La Depeche Marocaine had that morning announced 
that the Sultan had authorized Raisuli to take a body of 
troops into a rebellious district and collect back-taxes. 
My credulity was strengthened when the man declined 
a tip which I offered him — an experience that I had 



340 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

never had happen before in North Africa. Plainly, 
here was a country Moor in whom was no guile. 

I felt guilty as I put the coin back into my pocket 
and apologized. Then the countryman volunteered to 
take me down to the camp. I gladly accepted. On 
circling back he showed me a small estate, which he 
said was Raisuli's. He also gave me interesting de- 
tails of Raisuli's family history. A European mounted 
on a fine horse came down the road, drew rein, and 
shook hands with my guide. As he rode off, the Moor 
explained that this was Raisuli's business manager, 
on his way to pay off the troops in the camp. 

As I was cordially taking leave of him on the hill- 
top, he delicately suggested that I might tip him now. 
I did so with genuine pleasure, but he demurred and 
asked for twice as much. I gave it, but a deepening 
suspicion that I had been tricked haunted me all the 
way back to Tangier. 

The next morning I read in La Depeche that the 
horsemen forming the escort of Si Mohammed Ben- 
Aissa, Bashaw of Safh, were in camp out on the polo- 
grounds while the Bashaw awaited permission to pro- 
ceed to Fez! 

Not since that day have I believed anything that a 
Moor has told me. 

All along the wet lanes of Africa, at every port of 
call for passenger steamers, I found the hotel-runner 
and the guide standing expectant on the pier or wad- 
ing into the surf to seize me with his itching fingers. 
But from the time that I put foot on the soil of the 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 341 

Senegal and thenceforward until the peaks of the 
Canaries again rose up to greet me on the Homeward- 
bound, this human pest gladdened me by his absence. 

In the average port along the West Coast, remem- 
ber, there are no hotels. If you are a personage, you 
are invited to become the guest of a government 
official or a consul or a missionary or a merchant; 
if your social status is not high enough for that, you 
go to a cheap boarding-house. It is true that you will 
find various kinds of institutions that are called " ho- 
tels," but they are not recommended as such by the 
white residents. The traveller may at least give 
thanks to whatever gods there be that there are no 
hotel-runners to vex his soul. 

And how can there be guides where the tourist 
never comes, where " Cook's " is an unknown term, 
where the picture postcard exists merely for the con- 
venience of the European resident who wants to send 
tabloid greetings to friends that seem as far away as 
the canals of Mars. 

And so, if you are a mere bird of passage flitting 
along the low coast-line like a stormy petrel, alighting 
here and there for an instant, you may forget that the 
word guide is in the dictionary. But if you should 
set your face toward the hinterland, you must once 
more submit to being personally conducted — ^but un- 
der conditions for which your previous experience has 
been no real preparation. But here, at last, your guide 
justifies his existence, for he is a trail-blazer instead 
of a catalogue of historical incidents, an interpreter 
instead of a purchasing agent, and a take-me-by-the- 



342 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

hand guardian in all of the many emergencies that are 
awaiting the white man down the African trail. Let 
me call out of the mist of the bush three of these 
guides — the three whom I know most intimately. 

Zach Kennedy is the first — a tall, skinny, good- 
natured old Negro, American-born. For many years 
he has been a district commissioner of the Liberian 
Government, a persuasive envoy who acts as a go- 
between in the adjustment of the delicate relations 
with native tribes. He could tell me of stirring scenes 
in the not-distant days, of great war-camps bristling 
with spears, of imposing peace-palavers whose issue 
determined whether or not a vast region should be 
soaked in blood and strewn with whitening skeletons. 
Besides, Kennedy was a pocket manual of bush-lore. 
He could tell me whether to snap fingers (they snap 
fingers instead of shaking hands in the bush) once, 
twice, or thrice in any given tribe; in order to be on 
the safe side, however, I usually went the limit in each 
place. He knew all the kings and most of the vil- 
lagers in the region through which we were travelling, 
and could quickly set at rest any doubt concerning the 
purpose of my visit. Moreover, Kennedy is one of 
the few foreigners who have been admitted into the 
mysterious " devil bush," a universal secret fraternity 
whose membership is supposed to be limited to native 
men. Instead of a revolver, he carries with him a 
peculiar fetish which is scrupulously guarded from 
ordinary eyes, but which has the effect of a secret- 
service badge when the occasion demands. 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 343 

For weeks I toiled through the bush with Kennedy, 
who enhvened the day's march with stories of per- 
sonal experience and with chapters on folk-lore and 
native customs. He exasperated me to the point of 
explosion at times, for he had a way of dealing with 
emergencies in a characteristic Negro fashion, and the 
patience of the white man in the bush is not a thing 
to brag about. But he looked after my personal com- 
fort; he exalted my dignity in the eyes of the tribal 
chiefs; and when a violent attack of dysentery made 
it impossible for me longer to walk, he had me ham- 
mocked in safety back to the coast. I hold him in 
pleasing and grateful remembrance also because of a 
glorious breakfast of hot biscuits, ham and eggs, and 
real coffee which his sister prepared for me on the 
morning that I emerged from the bush in a distressing 
condition. On the strength of that meal I discharged 
the hammock-men and walked the twelve miles into 
Monrovia in a drenching rain. 

Another government man who guided me over 
many a weary trail was Sam Watkins, of Cape 
Palmas. He is the only African guide whom I never 
" cussed," and yet we were together for nearly a 
month. There are few experiences in life that bring 
to the surface all that is unlovely in the disposition of 
a man more quickly than the hardships of the bush 
trail — ^and so the simple statement that we never quar- 
relled speaks more for Watkins than anything else 
that I might say concerning his virtues. 

He was resourceful in every emergency, even to the 



SM THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

point of impressing a canoe when there was none to 
be hired. He was patient and uncomplaining when 
the white man's eagerness to travel rapidly was not 
to his liking. He was thoughtful of my privacy as 
well as of my comfort, and never under any circum- 
stances forgot that I was a gentleman in disguise. 
And in the only village where it looked as though we 
must either fight or allow ourselves to be robbed, he 
accepted the decision to fight with a calm, cheerful 
courage. If Liberia had fewer selfish politicians and 
more real men like Sam Watkins, the republic would 
be revolutionized. 

Lest the gentle reader make the mistake of think- 
ing that there is too great a contrast between the 
guides of the West Coast and the Arab and Moorish 
gentlemen who have already been described, a few 
paragraphs about Jacko is here inserted. 

A government commissioner had told me, as I left 
for the bush, that I would find at a village called 
Tobo, several days back from the coast, a man who 
always accompanied him on his tours of the hinter- 
land. At Tobo, therefore, I asked for Jacko. 

A tall, gaunt, hungry-eyed man of the bush re- 
sponded. He spoke a little English, and said that he 
knew every step of the trail ahead and could speak 
all the languages — and so he was engaged indefinitely 
at two shillings a day, which was double price. (My 
confidence was slightly shaken during the second hour, 
however, when I was called upon to give two leaves 
of tobacco to another bushman who had led Jacko into 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 345 

the main trail. ) Jacko's experience on government 
business had left him with an exalted sense of his 
importance. He declined to carry anything except his 
gun; he had a way of taking the bit in his teeth with- 
out waiting to learn my pleasure; and since he had 
never travelled with a white man before, he had not 
even the faintest appreciation of the white man's 
ways. 

On the trail he was superb. In the evening, when 
he had the honour of introducing me to the villagers 
(often the first white man that they had ever seen), 
he was merely amusing in his vanity. But Jacko's 
main consideration from sunrise to sunset was his 
stomach, and he lost no opportunity of filling it at 
the expense of my pocket or of my convenience. 

For instance, it was extremely difficult for us ever 
to get an early start, because Jacko always protested 
that the king of the village would be offended if we 
should leave without eating the " chop " that was be- 
ing prepared; as a matter of fact a bush king rarely 
bothered his head about our " chop " unless Jacko 
put him up to it, assuring him of a generous " dash " 
from me. He also had a habit of arranging with the 
king for two chickens to be caught for me, instead of 
one, so that there would be something left over for 
him — but he always represented to me that the king 
felt so highly honoured at my presence that he wished 
to show me unusual courtesy. 

Once Jacko thought to have a feast of goat at my 
expense. It was in Belliblow, a town that gave me a 
glad hand. He came with a message from the king. 



346 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

saying that since I was the first white guest that his 
village had entertained, he wished to kill a goat in my 
honour. (This meant, as I well knew, that I must 
give the king two or three times the value of the 
goat before leaving — and Jacko probably had arranged 
for a commission.) The refusal of that goat with- 
out offending the susceptibilities of a suspicious king 
was a notable achievement. It was accomplished as 
the result of what I had already learned about a curi- 
ous custom that prevails in every tribe that I had 
visited. 

First I sent Jacko to bring the king to my hut, 
in order to be sure that he would "get it straight." 
The conversation went along in piecemeal, so that 
Jacko, who was interpreting, might not see the point 
until he was too far along to turn aside from it and 
defeat my purpose : 

" All dem bushmen have something they no eat," 
I began in the " English "of the coast. 

Jacko translated and the king grunted by way of 
assent. 

" My boy Sammy-o no eat dem monkey." 

Jacko interpreted, and the king grunted louder. 

'' My boy Ben eat dem monkey, but he no eat dem 
chicken." 

Another grunt, crescendo. 

'' My boy Cracko, he eat dem monkey and eat dem 
chicken, but he no eat dem bullock." 

A long guttural showed that this part of the dia- 
logue was definitely clear to the old king. Then I 
got down to the point. 



AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 347 

" White man just like bushman — some things he no 
eat." 

The grunt this time was full of surprise. 

" Me, I eat dem monkey; I eat dem chicken; I eat 
dem bullock; but I no eat dem goat!" 

The grunt of understanding had in it an unmistak- 
able note of disappointment, and I was saved. The 
king abandoned his intention of killing the goat, and 
Jacko lost both his feast and his commission. 

Jacko worried me on this trip so much that my 
soul longed for the sight of Tobo again, when I would 
be on safe ground and able to deal with him in my 
own fashion. When we reached Tobo, however, I 
discovered that Jacko had the delusion that I was go- 
ing to take him all the way back to the coast — at two 
shillings per day — and he also had visions of work- 
ing a government graft while at the coast. 

Instead of paying him off at Tobo^ where he might 
have stampeded my carriers, I allowed him to con- 
tinue for another day. At every village which we 
passed on the coast-ward trail, he was shouting tem- 
porary farewells to his acquaintances and telling them 
of his good fortune. But night brought us to the 
Cavalla River, and I knew the route from that point 
as well as he. I therefore called him in and counted 
out his shillings. He was the most surprised guide 
that it has been my fortune to see. The monotony 
of the following day was much relieved by the reflec- 
tion that Jacko was probably spending most of it in 
explaining to his friends why he had returned so soon. 



XXIV 
HUNTING AFRICANS WITH A CAMERA 

THE man who goes into Africa with an elephant- 
gun may average more thrills to a minute than 
the man with a camera, but the fellow who 
returns with a bagful of negatives does not begrudge 
the other any of the pleasure that he gets from his 
trophies. However, it may be that I am not a quali- 
fied judge, for I slew no African beast larger than 
a mosquito and brought back no trophies, other than 
blood corpuscles full of fever germs. 

It is customary in African books, I believe, to print 
in an appendix a catalogue of the photographic outfit. 
From this the reader is here spared, for the list of 
my paraphernalia would not make a respectable foot- 
note. An Eastman kodak and tripod, a suit-case full 
of films, a box-developer, some chemicals, and print- 
ing-paper — that was the outfit. 

Every detail had been selected with the West Coast 
in mind. By taking a folding kodak, I saved space; 
by using films, I saved weight; with the box-developer 
I could develop on the spot and avoid the loss of 
negatives from dampness. By having the camera fitted 
out with a Zeiss-Tessar lens, I was able to make snap- 
shots without sunlight — an important consideration in 
Africa — and negatives that would enlarge well. 

348 




DEVELOPING FILMS IN A HINTERLAND CREEK 




AND IN SALT WATER ON THE WALBURG 



HUNTING AFRICANS WITH A CAMERA 349 

I had been in the Dark Continent fifteen minutes, 
perhaps, before I discovered that the tripod was use- 
less. I was in the land of Islam, where the Mussul- 
man has a theological prejudice against pictures; if 
you want him, you must get him quickly and unob- 
trusively. If you set up a tripod and focus, he either 
turns his back or draws the hood of his hiir- 
nouse across his face. I have a theory that the 
best plan is to go after him with a box-camera that 
has a fake lens on the side; then you may take 
him leisurely while he thinks that he is watching 
you photograph something at a right angle to 
him. 

Aside from the Mussulman's reluctance to assist 
in breaking the Commandment about graven images, 
there is his fear of " the evil eye " to be considered. 
I well remember the anxious face of a sick patriarch at 
Kairouan who saw my lens looking at him as he was 
being lifted upon a camel; and so dark and threaten- 
ing were the scowls of his attendants that I used my 
ingenuity to convey the impression that I was taking 
the mosque beyond them. I know of one case where 
the death of a child was laid directly at the door of 
an American who had carelessly photographed it a 
few days before. 

If the camera-man be discreet, however, he may fill 
his bag with Arab negatives without danger. Now 
and then he will stumble headlong into fanaticism 
of course — as I did once when I mistook a ragged 
" holy man " for a common beggar. However, al- 
most any man would be willing to forego some of the 



350 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

safety if he could thereby remove the other difficulties 
of getting exactly what he wants. 

The Bey of Tunis was one of the first Africans for 
whom I went " gunning." It was no easy job, for 
his soldiers and attendants have the habit of getting 
in the way as he comes out of the railway station and 
walks rapidly to his closed carriage. It was merely by 
chance that I succeeded in getting him on the wing. 

Curiously enough, I had even more difficulty in 
photographing a distinguished American who stopped 
for several days at the same hotel with me. The 
concierge had told me, excitedly, that an American 
millionaire was motoring across from Algiers — either 
a Rockefeller or a Vanderbilt, he thought. When he 
arrived, I recognized Monsieur Samson — at least, 
that is the name on the hotel register. With him was 
'' Mme. Samson" (of the Spanish opera), and a 
femme-de-chambre^ and a coiirrier, and a chauffeur, 
and an English valet. 

It was the valet who blocked my simple plan of 
photographing an American millionaire and his lady 
in an automobile in Africa. If the machine drew up 
at the door. Monsieur Samson never came downstairs 
if I was on the landscape; but the valet was sure to 
come down every little while and then go back up- 
stairs. 

By chance, one morning '' Madame Samson " came 
out on the balcony as I was standing across the street 
in full view. " Click " went the shutter, and away 
went the Madame. Then she came hurriedly down- 



HUNTING AFRICANS WITH A CAMERA 351 

stairs, called Hassin Forga (a guide), and said things 
to him with much gesticulation. 

Hassin at once headed for my corner; in his palm 
were coins, which he clinked significantly as he ap- 
proached. All the loiterers pricked up their ears. 

" Run, quick, and photograph the Bey! " suggested 
Hassin. 

I smiled, thanked him, and told him that I had al- 
ready done so. 

There was more talk from Hassin and more sig- 
nificant clinking of the money, but it had the opposite 
effect from what Madame intended. I positively re- 
fused to budge. 

" Mr. Samson " was evidently out, and Madame 
had an important engagement. She sent the auto off 
in a rush, raised her parasol in the corridor, and held 
it between her face and the camera as she rushed up 
the street. But my game-bag has negatives of the 
whole party, machine and all, just the same! 

In Tangier I had many a merry chase, for the Moor 
is an elusive bird. The common varieties were easy 
prey, but those that I really wanted had to be stalked. 
A newly elected Bashaw, for instance, came from 
Fez with an imposing cavalcade. I waited two 
hours at a strategic point, and then came word that 
he had chosen the beach route. At the beach I waited 
another hour; just as his cavalcade came in sight he 
suddenly changed his mind — and I chased all the way 
across the town before I caught him. 

Another Moorish gentleman who tried to dodge 



THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

me may be seen at the Soco gate almost any day — 
a venerable '' saint " with a long, white beard. Once 
he was a soldier detailed for duty at the American 
Legation, but the influence of that institution led him 
into the realms of holiness. I w^as in Tangier six 
weeks before I got him — but I got him. 

Things happen in Africa by contraries. When I 
had reached the West Coast and gone back into regions 
that had seldom or never seen a white man, I ex- 
pected camera difficulties. To my amazement, even 
the most superstitious tribe was perfectly at ease in 
front of the lens. Some of the little folks were 
timid, but a white man can run them into the bush 
with a bar of soap. My chief difficulty with the 
Blacks grew out of the desire of the whole village to 
be photographed. 

Notwithstanding the cheerful consent of the parties 
of the second part, most of my failures were on the 
West Coast. Hundreds of picturesque scenes on the 
trail, for instance, could not be photographed on ac- 
count of the deep gloom of the African bush. Among 
all my negatives there is none showing a caravan on 
the trail — for the simple reason that only a small 
part of a caravan is visible at a time, except when it 
leaves the bush. 

It is the climate, however, that is the inveterate foe 
of the camera. A film soaks up moisture like a sponge, 
and the West Coast atmosphere is composed of about 
nine-tenths moisture and one-tenth air. In the dry 
season, even, you must dry your tobacco over a fire 



HUNTING AFRICANS WITH A CAMERA 353 

before you can crumble it into your pipe. All my 
films were kept in air-tight tins and placed in the 
camera only when needed; but experience proved that 
they must be promptly developed or be lost. 

This is the point where the box-developer was 
worth its weight in ivory. Every village has a creek — 
and there, in the cool of the early morn, I developed 
my negatives. The water was tepid, of course, but 
the results were fairly good. The chief trouble cen- 
tred in the drying of a roll of film after it was de- 
veloped, for it had to be hung up in an atmosphere 
from which you could almost squeeze moisture. There 
were times when a film would dry only in the blazing 
sun, and more than once I have had to hold it hori- 
zontally for an hour to prevent the emulsion from run- 
ning off like molasses. And, of course, it was in- 
variably the wrong negative that suffered a mishap. 

Once, in the rainy season, I decided to take the risk 
of leaving my films to be developed after my return 
to the coast. I carefully followed instructions not to 
re-seal in the tins a negative that had been in the 
camera. It was an interesting and exciting month 
in the hinterland; I made the choicest exposures of 
the entire year. But when I developed them at the 
coast, I found only one indifferent negative; all the 
others were ruined! Kings and carriers, quaint vil- 
lages and picturesque canoes, mahogany camps and 
monkeys in the tree-tops — all gone! And the bitter- 
ness of the experience is not lessened by the reflection 
that if I had daily gone down to the creek with my 
little box-developer, three- fourths of them might have 
been brought back in my game-bag. 



XXV 
PERSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE 

IT is now too late to question the white man's right 
to Africa. The continent is his, and his it will 
remain — regardless of the Black and the Brown. 
Besides, this question of inalienable rights and the 
tenure of land is too complex for ordinary minds to 
grapple with. After all, how much difference is there 
between the purchase of Manhattan Island for $24 
worth of trinkets and the acquisition of a hundred 
square miles from an African chief in return for a 
bottle of gin and a bolt of cloth? 

Before the day of international codes and Hague 
Tribunals, that thing became right which was agreed 
upon by the strong men and established with spear 
and bow. And when boat-building became ship- 
building, it became an international law — a right, if 
you please — that newly discovered lands belonged to 
the nation whose ships should first beach on their 
shores. Upon such a simple ceremony as planting a 
stick with a flag on it rested England's claim to Virginia 
and Massachusetts, France's claim to Canada, and 
Spain's tenure of Florida and Louisiana. 

The right of conquest was established as firmly as 
the right of discovery — and so New Amsterdam be- 
came New York, and Canada became British soil. 

854 




JUST TO SHOW THAT I WAS THERE 



PERSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE 355 

Followed another '' right " — that of throwing off the 
yoke of the mother country — if you can. 

Africa has not reached that stage. Within our own 
little era, it has passed the stage of discovery and ex- 
ploration. It is ours now to observe Africa in its era 
of development. We see South Africa as Europe 
saw New York in 1700; the Congo as Georgia looked 
in 1750; the great French Sudan as the undistricted 
region south of the Ohio appeared to European eyes 
in 1775. And they who weep over the White Man's 
conquest of Africa are the grandchildren of good 
men and women who once shed tears over the wrongs 
of the Red Man who had to move on because he 
wouldn't work. 

The humanitarian generally forgets what Africa 
was when the white man found it. Livingstone, who 
was temperate in language, summed up his impres- 
sions in one sentence : " It gives me the impression 
of being in hell." The inscription upon his tomb in 
England's Abbey of immortals — and it was written to 
the American people just a year before his death — calls 
for a blessing upon every man who shall help to heal 
" the open sore of the world." That was Black Man's 
Africa as the White Man found it. 

There is one long tragedy about the centuries of 
conquest in a pitiless land, for Africa has taken its 
greedy toll of all the whites that have run their keels 
upon its inhospitable coast-line — explorers, slavers, 
traders, missionaries, officials. It is not gross exag- 
geration to think of the Dark Continent as one vast 
cemetery, enclosed by a coast-line of white marble 



356 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET 

slabs to represent the graves of the whites that have 
died. Their resting-places — forgotten now save by the 
few who loved them or revere their memory — are 
chiefly around the continent's rim, but all over the 
vast rain-soaked and sun-washed interior you will find 
little crosses under lonely palms and baobabs, the 
crypt and key to buried treasure, for the kind of cour- 
age that brought them to this end was a real asset of 
their nations — regardless of the purpose for which 
they went out — and their loss impoverished the world 
in a real sense. 

;}t >I< ^ ^ 5|; 

I am loth to close this fragmentary record of a 
year in the Dark Continent — a year which has brought 
me many heartaches — without a word of tribute to the 
men and women who wear the White Helmet. It is 
not merely because you were kind to a passing traveller 
— you of Tunis, and of Tangier, and of Dakar, and 
of Freetown, and of Monrovia, and of Cape Palmas, 
and of many steamships — but because I honour you 
for your great work in a hot and lonely land. 

"I have eaten your bread and salt, 

I have drunk your water and wine; 
The deaths ye died I have watched beside, 
And the lives that ye led were mine." 

I stand uncovered, here across the leagues of water 
that breaks in a booming surf on your coast, and my 
best wish for you is that you also may live to hear 
the whir of the windlass as the anchor drops to its bed 
in the port of Home ! 



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"This book will be a power in the land. It is brimful of energy and 
common sense enthusiasm. It is aggressive, interesting, instructive." 
Southwestern Presbyterian. 



THE BRIGHT SmE OF MISSIONARY LIFE 



HELEN E. SPRINGER 

Snap Shots from Sunny Africa 

Introduction by Bishop Hartzler. Illustrated, i2mo. Cloth, 
net $1.00. 

A singularly interesting- collection of incidents of mis- 
sion life among the African natives, such as "Attending a 
Native Dance," "An African Vanity Fair," "The Glorious 
Fourth in Africa," "Watapo's Wedding," "Bicycling in Cen- 
tral Africa," and many other subjects of equal fascination. 



Daybreak in Korea ^ '^^^^ °^ Transformation 



ANNIE L A. BAIRD 

'r\fckt:t A Ta 

in the Far Fast. 

Illustrated, i6mo, cloth, net 6oc. 

"A keen, incisive story, which depicts the life of the 
Korean woman in a most revealing way. It is just the book 
for those who would quickly penetrate beyond outward ap- 
pearances and see what moves the Korean mind. It is full 
of snap and vim with a true insight into reality." — JVm. 
Elliot Griffis. 

MARY CULLER WHITE 

The Days of June 

The lyife Story of June Nicholson. i6mo, Cloth, net 50c. 

In this little transcript from actual life may be seen 
clearly the "stuff of which missionaries are made." W. R. 
Lambreth, General Secretary of the Board of Missions M, F- 
Church, South, says: "Such books help us to realize the 
potentiality of a life given to a life mission. ... .The spright- 
liness of the author's style, the pathos, the insight and the 
deep currents of thought are almost inimitable." 

ISABELLA RIGGS WILLIAMS 



By the Great WaU 



Selected Correspondence of Isabella Riggs Williams, Mis- 
sionary of the American Board to China, 1866-1897. 
With an introduction by Arthur H. Smith. Illustrated, 

lamo, cloth, net $1.50. 

"This volume is a little window opened into the life and 
•work of an exceptionally equipped missionary. Mrs. Wil- 
liams won the hearts of Chinese women and girls; showed 
what a Christian home may be, and how the children of 
such a home can be trained for wide and unselfish useful- 
ness wherever their lot is cast." — Arthur H. Smith, Author 
of Chinese Characteristics, Etc. 



IN THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. 



Modern India 

Illustrated, 8vo, Cloth, net $2.00. 

WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS 

With so many books on India one might aSk, why any more ? 
The answer is that Mr. Curtis has a way of finding out what others 
miss, and of telling his story so that it cannot be forgotten, 

£i(ypt> Burma &nd British Malaysia 

Illustrated, 8vo, Cloth, net $2.00. 

WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS 

Mr. Curtis is the most skillful observer in the ranks of American 
travelers and correspondents. His pages are fascinating pictures of 
life, men and affairs in out-of-the-way places, and moreover he tel\s 
one just the things most worth knowing about everywhere he goes, 
whether it is scenery, politics, business or religion. 

The Mediterranean Traveller IS'^.'^iSdelS/' 

2nd Edition, revised. Illustrations and Maps, izmo. Cloth, net $2.50. 

DANIEL E. LORENZ 

"Gives essential facts in one compact volume, and it is done well. 
Treats in order Madeira, Southern Spain and Gibraltar, crosses the 
Strait to Tangier, Algiers and Tripoli, then carries the reader to Tur- 
key, Palestine and Egypt, and returns him along the northern shores, 
through Italy and the Riviera. The traveler will find it of service in 
planning his travels through these fascinating lands." — N, Y. Sun. 

Round the World Toward the Westering 
Sun 

i2mo. Cloth, net |i. 25. LEE S. SMITH 

In an earlier volume " Through Egypt and Palestine " Mr. Smith 
gave ample evidence of his ability to write entertaingly. Tn this new 
book, with a wider field he has produced not only an exceedingly in- 
teresting work, but a valuable guide to intending touristy 

Two Years in Three Continents 

8vo, Cloth, net $2.00. E. M. CONDIT 

"It is impossible to read the cheerful narrative of this lively globe- 
trotter without absorbing some of his enthusiasm, for he is full of it." — 
Boston Transcript. 

Missions from the Modern View 

Introduction by Charles Cuthbert Hall, D.D. 

i2mo. Cloth, net #1.25. ROBERT A. HUME 

"Dr. Hume's treatment of the theme is that of one on the firing 

line, engaged in manifold practical activities but at the same time 

keeping pace with the best Christian thought of England and Amer- 

ca, "—Congregationalist. 






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